Deliver us from these robot postmen

Dinner by automaton? Parcels by drone? It'll never catch on - or will it? Maybe China has the perfect solution

Driving through the east London suburb of Greenwich to pick up my wife from the station the other evening, I pulled up at a pedestrian crossing to allow a man using a mobile phone to cross, along with what I thought was his companion.

However, the "partner" wasn't anything to do with him. It was a six-wheeled fiberglass box with a whip aerial and it seemed to have a mind of its own. The pedestrian walked off in one direction and it went in the other.

I sat mesmerized by this apparently remote-controlled device trundling along the pavement until it turned a corner and vanished.

I didn't know it at the time but I'd just watched part of an experiment in the high-tech Millennium Greenwich village to deliver hot food by remote control.

The idea is simple - you phone the delivery company for, let's say, a Chinese meal. The food is put into the little truck and locked with a code. The truck heads off to the address, where the recipient - alerted by text message - opens the box with the code and takes out the meal.

The device is steered by commands that take it to pre-programmed coordinates, and sensors make sure it doesn't bump into anything en route.

What could possibly go wrong?

In the big wide open spaces of the rural United States, Amazon is experimenting with small drones that carry boxes, up to a certain size and weight, and deliver them to pre-programmed addresses using a sophisticated form of GPS.

Given the enthusiasm in some states in the US for their right to bear arms, I think you'll find these drones will make ideal targets.

I can't see the drone idea or the remote food buggy working in the urban jungles of Beijing or Shanghai. How on earth will a drone figure out how to reach Mr and Mrs Wong on the 64th floor of a tower block?

China, however, with that brilliant problem-solving trait that seems to pervade the country, has come at the delivery problem from a different angle.

If Muhammad won't come to the mountain, then take the mountain to Muhammad.

When I spent a few weeks in Beijing earlier this year I was fascinated by the arrival in the early morning of fleets of those pesky electric delivery tricycles that you can't hear coming, pulling up outside the offices of China Daily in Chaoyang district.

I was equally fascinated by the queues of employees lining up to take their parcels.

Later, colleagues enlightened me.

Let's say you order something online at 9 pm but you know you have to be work the next day and your boss isn't going to buy the old "I have to stay home to wait for a delivery" line. Plus, the delivery guy isn't ready to deliver to the 64th floor of a tower block.

Instead, a time is designated outside the office and you collect your parcel. And it's free.

In the competitive world of internet commerce, that's a plus.

Of course, it could lead to anarchy.

In Beijing, the authorities have moved to try to bring a sense of order after reports of tricycle drivers racing to meet tight delivery deadlines, ignoring red lights and riding in bicycle lanes.

So although the actual status of these machines has yet to be defined - Motorized? Nonmotorized? - the authorities now require them to clearly carry a registration mark, and their appearance will be standardized, as well as the drivers being issued a card with a code of conduct on it.

So far, according to a report by one of my colleagues, the authorities have so far brought 57,000 tricycles from 40 delivery companies into the scheme.

Me? I have a very good relationship with my postman, who delivers on foot regularly, six days a week, come rain, sun or snow. Also, he talks.

I don't see him being replaced by a robot anytime soon.

The author is managing editor of China Daily European Bureau. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com