Autonomous delivery robots are increasingly sharing sidewalks with pedestrians in major metropolitan areas. Proponents highlight their potential to reduce last-mile delivery costs, lower carbon emissions compared to traditional diesel vans, and ease vehicular traffic congestion. However, critics raise concerns regarding sidewalk crowding, safety hazards for visually impaired pedestrians, job displacement for local couriers, and the zero-priced use of public pavement infrastructure.
Extract F (lines 14–15) states: 'as automated sidewalk robots multiply, we must carefully weigh the public space trade-offs.'
Use the extract and your knowledge of economics to assess whether governments should encourage, discourage or do nothing more to affect the use of autonomous delivery robots.
378 exam-style questions on AQA A Level Economics 1.8 The market mechanism, market failure and government intervention in markets, covering 1.8.1 How markets and prices allocate resources, 1.8.2 The meaning of market failure, 1.8.3 Public goods, private goods and quasi-public goods, 1.8.4 Positive and negative externalities in consumption and production, 1.8.5 Merit and demerit goods, 1.8.6 Market imperfections, 1.8.7 Competition policy (A-level only), 1.8.8 Public ownership, privatisation, regulation and deregulation of markets (A-level only), 1.8.9 Government intervention in markets, and 1.8.10 Government failure. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.