During the ‘22 - ‘23 school year, students had a 75% reorder rate with more than 400 orders a day

Cartken, a leading platform specializing in AI-powered robotics and autonomous last-mile delivery, announced today through its partnership with Grubhub and the University of Arizona that more than 50,000 autonomous deliveries have been made via Cartken robots on its campus during the ‘22 - ‘23 school year.

Cartken robots first debuted on the University of Arizona’s campus in August 2022, just in time for the start of the school year. The University of Arizona had an existing partnership with Grubhub Campus Dining that allows students to use their meal plans to order food from on-campus restaurants via the Grubhub app for pickup. Through Cartken’s partnership with Grubhub, students are able to select robot delivery as an option when ordering from on campus restaurants. With this delivery addition, the university’s more than 40,000 students can order from 12 on-site restaurants and campus dining facilities and receive their order autonomously at one of the 60 drop-off stations throughout the nearly 400 acre campus.

“The University of Arizona and Grubhub have been incredible partners in helping us scale and launch this program rapidly and successfully,” said Anjali Jindal Naik, COO and co-founder of Cartken. “Witnessing Cartken’s robot fleet operating at one of Grubhub’s largest university partners is a moment of immense pride and fulfillment.”

Once this delivery was enabled, students quickly adopted the new option, with nearly 1,000 students ordering each week, and 75% of students placing orders via robot delivery more than once. By seamlessly integrating within the existing Grubhub ordering technology, this implementation brought an added layer of convenience to the ordering process, allowing students to maintain their familiar mobile ordering routines through the Grubhub app. The integration allows students to order, track, and even unlock the robots right from their mobile devices.

“At the University of Arizona, we pride ourselves on being an innovative institution, not only for learning, but overall student experience,” said Christine Carlson, Director of Dining and Nutrition, University of Arizona. “Cartken’s robot delivery technology helps us provide students with more convenient dining options and access to food across campus. The students and staff really enjoy engaging with the robots”.

The median driving time for the Cartken robots was an impressive 12 minutes and 55 seconds per delivery. The more than 40 robots traveled more than 300 miles a day, with each robot averaging eight miles daily. Cartken robots were responsible for an average of 400 student orders per day, with 444 orders in a single day being the record high over the first nine months of the partnership.

To read the full case study and learn more about Cartken and its partnership with Grubhub, please visit https://cartken.com/case-studies/university-of-arizona.

About Cartken

Cartken is an AI-powered robotics company building sidewalk delivery robots currently used for neighborhood food/grocery delivery, campus meal delivery, and curbside pickup. The autonomy guiding our robots makes them the safest and most reliable in the market today. We serve as a technology provider in a B2B relationship allowing our partners to own the consumer relationship. Cartken's team of ex-Google engineers and operators combine deep expertise in self-driving cars, AI-powered robotics, and delivery operations.

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