Corralling Electric Scooters and Delivery Robots on Campus

The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of ACUPA or Purdue University.

Classes for the new academic year started on August 19 at Purdue and, so far, the sidewalks are less dangerous than they were this time last year. That’s because we don’t have 3,000 electric scooters zipping around campus and being discarded like food wrappers outside buildings, at bus stops, and in the middle of public walkways. Last fall, someone on an electric scooter who clearly did not know how to stop it nearly ran me over.

Purdue’s flagship campus is located in West Lafayette, Indiana, which is a city of nearly 30,000 people. The population more than doubles when Purdue’s 43,000 students come to town. So, the university has a definite impact on the city that surrounds it. When a scooter company dropped off 3,000 electric scooters around campus last year for students to rent via an app on their smartphones, the university coordinated with the city to get the chaos that ensued under control. Eventually, the scooters disappeared, and the city now has an ordinance in place that requires scooter companies to obtain permits, limits the number of scooters the company can deploy, mandates parking fees and fines for the company, and requires operators of scooters to follow the same rules as bicycle operators.

So far, two companies have obtained permits through the city. The fact that the companies can deploy only 150 scooters each has notably reduced their presence around campus. Now, Purdue just needs to focus on outlining complementary rules for use of the scooters on its campus, which makes my job much easier.

As we contemplate those rules, we are also considering language for managing another new technology about to invade our campus: food delivery robots. These are small, autonomous devices that look like coolers on wheels used by restaurants to deliver food. Some of you may have seen them on your own campuses. So far, only one or two robots have been spotted, and we are told they are in the mapping phase, meaning that they are mapping out the campus so that once they are in use, the robots will know how to navigate to delivery addresses.As you can imagine, having small, unmarked vehicles rolling around campus with locked containers carrying who knows what presents a myriad of safety concerns.

Curious to read more about the scooters and robots? Here are a couple links to articles in our local newspaper:

• Scooter companies promise to do better, ready to deploy again in Lafayette, near Purdue
• Little white robot seen driving Purdue sidewalks, identified as Starship Technologies

If any of you have encountered similar issues, I’d love to hear what you did to address them. Leave a comment below, and if you have a policy you are willing to share, include a link.