Originally published at: Amazon to Expand Drone Delivery to Nearly 500 U.S. Cities
Amazon plans to expand Prime Air drone delivery to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026.
According to a University of Southampton study, ground delivery is about 12.7 times safer than drone delivery. However, ground traffic congestion in urban and metro areas has increased by 18% over the last 5 years, which is why companies like Amazon are taking to drone deliveries. As Amazon, Google Wing, other drone delivery companies, police departments and other public safety agencies take to the air more and more with beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations, we can expect more accidents like the five that occurred in 2025 and 2026. Obstacle detection and aircraft avoidance technology is improving quickly but there are lots of hard-to-detect obstacles like wires below 400 AGL and low altitude drone traffic in that airspace is increasing rapidly. How eVTOL Uber-like air taxi operations in urban areas will mix with low altitude drone-congested airspace is anyone’s guess.
Andrew I agree w some of your pints . There however is a lack of clarity on your understanding of where wires like power and radio towers come into play . While yes they are hard to see w the human eye they show up very clearly on cheap q and w band radar ( very common and used in most cars cruise control now) . Plus these are all mapped . That mapping is easy to include in flight algorithms as my last employer has show in many pilotless products .
Personally I think I’m usbam areas this is a terrible idea. Life is loud enough having more drones which have a much more irritating sound footprint than electric truck ( Amazon baseline) is just one more avoidable thing. We really are becoming way too spoiled for immediate gratification. One hour delivery ?? WTF? One day is amazing.
Guess they’ll learn to bomb swimming pools as an added bonus.
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