Switzerland on the Sidelines

The election of Lisa Bourdon, a 27-year-old from Vaud, to the National Council on the Women’s Party ticket was one of the surprises of the federal elections in late October—and the new National Council member was already making headlines during the winter session: She demonstrated her political talent with a motion—co-signed by 72 Council members from all parties and regions of the country—calling for the rapid introduction of transport drones. In it, she calls on the Federal Council to authorize this mode of transport, which is already widely used abroad, in Switzerland as well. To help Switzerland catch up as quickly as possible, the purchase of standardized landing stations by interested private individuals should also be subsidized for two years. And to address the safety concerns repeatedly raised by drone opponents, the Federal Council should take the lead in establishing a national drone police force in collaboration with the cantons. Bourdon is thus taking up a cause that is gaining support among ever-broader segments of the population and the business community. Experience from other countries shows that this makes life easier and reduces transportation costs. Many people do not understand why Switzerland has fallen behind in this area.

Flashback: Drones had been in use by the military—specifically the U.S. military—for quite some time, but it was in late November 2013 that their use for delivering goods was first presented to the public. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos succeeded, through a remarkable PR maneuver, in showcasing his project on the legendary American TV news program 60 Minutes. Although Bezos' project announcement was nothing but «hot air,» the strategy paid off in full, and at the time, the topic of drones continued to dominate the media for weeks and sparked the imagination in conversations. Many dismissed it as a mere PR stunt and overlooked the seriousness of the project, which has since long since become a reality.

Back then, e-commerce was still limited to the ordering and payment process—delivery was a separate process and took a day at best, just as it still does for us today. As early as August 2012, eBay had launched «eBay Now» in San Francisco, a delivery service that delivered items from participating merchants to customers' homes within an hour. In the years that followed, the service was aggressively expanded to other major metropolitan areas in the U.S. and competed with several startups that sought to build a business around same-day delivery of online orders. And just two months before Bezos« appearance, Google had launched »Google Shopping Express” in the San Francisco metropolitan area—the so-called Bay Area, which includes Silicon Valley. Anyone who placed an order with participating local retailers via the Google app had their goods delivered to their doorstep within three to five hours for a fee of five dollars. Everyone liked this: customers, who could use their time for other things, and Google, which gained even more data on its users’ purchasing behavior and thus gained an edge in the advertising market. Initially, the goods were delivered by Google’s own drivers, until, five years ago, more and more states began allowing the use of self-driving delivery vehicles. As early as 2010, it had become known that Google was conducting research on autonomous vehicles—a special type of robot—and in 2013, the company expanded its robotics activities and acquired eight companies in the robotics sector. Thanks to its early involvement in robotics, the search engine giant has long since become a robotics giant itself and is constantly testing new approaches to automated delivery in combination with self-driving vehicles.

Problems with pirate drones have declined significantly

Meanwhile, Amazon focused on its outstanding capabilities in logistics and the operation of distribution centers. Initially in the U.S., but also in other countries, Amazon built such fulfillment centers near major metropolitan areas, where goods are stored and shipped using sophisticated logistics. Amazon Prime Air—as Bezos called the air delivery service even back then—made perfect sense: When first announced, the self-flying octocopters had a range of about 15 kilometers and could carry just under 2.5 kilograms of cargo. Eighty-six percent of Amazon’s deliveries fell within this weight limit and could therefore—at least in metropolitan areas—be delivered within 30 minutes of an order being placed. Yet Bezos made it clear at the time of the announcement that numerous issues regarding safety and reliability still needed to be resolved before the system could be put into operational use. Bezos considered obtaining approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to be the biggest challenge. But the enterprising visionary did not foresee that some of his trigger-happy compatriots would, to this day, take pleasure in shooting his drones out of the sky. On the other hand, problems with pirate drones—which steal cargo from transport drones mid-flight—have declined significantly since the police began operating their own drone network.

The idea of delivery drones didn’t actually originate with Bezos, even though he garnered the most publicity for it. The tech world had been fascinated by the concept long before that, and it was a Silicon Valley startup, Matternet, that played a key pioneering role. Just as Bezos anticipated difficulties with the FAA, the pioneers at Matternet also found it challenging to introduce drone technology in First World countries with their high level of regulation. As a result, civilian drone technology first took flight in developing countries. This is remarkable because new technologies—such as cell phones, laptops, and so on—had always been introduced first in the First World, and only after the high development and rollout costs had been covered did they spread to the Third World. In many respects, developing countries were predestined to help drone technology achieve its breakthrough. For one thing, there were hardly any regulations governing the operation of such drones in these countries, and for another, transport drones were immediately accepted by the population because they made useful improvements possible. This was because there were often hardly any roads, and even those were not always passable. Although a modern telecommunications infrastructure had been established in many of these countries—allowing, for example, a nurse at a remote health clinic to discuss a diagnosis with a doctor—the necessary medication could only reach the patient after a long delay. That changed as soon as the Matternet infrastructure was in place: Just as cellular networks are divided into many individual cells, each with an antenna, the Matternet concept features docking stations distributed throughout the entire service area. Here, drones can be loaded and unloaded, and, most importantly, they are automatically supplied with new batteries. This technology is now fully developed, and autonomous transport drones meet extensive safety requirements: They detect other flying objects, such as birds of prey and skydivers, and take evasive action.

The «Lindenbaum Disaster» Nevertheless, transport drones are still not permitted in Switzerland because the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) continues to have safety concerns. As is well known, the «Lindenbaum disaster» from 2019 continues to have an impact here, causing officials to act with excessive caution. At that time, Swiss Post was running its own high-profile project for «made in Switzerland» cargo drones. The aim was to make a good impression on the Federal Council and the general public, so they sent a Swiss Post drone carrying a care package to Trachselwald in the Emmental, where the Federal Council had planned a stop at a farm during its annual outing. During its landing approach, the drone got caught in a linden tree and crashed into the snack buffet that had been set out—allegedly because one too many salami slices had been packed, causing the transport weight to be exceeded. The Swiss Post project was then buried in the graveyard of ambitious Swiss homegrown developments, where similar projects from earlier decades (nuclear reactor, jet aircraft, telecommunications system) had ended up. The Post project also suffered from the drone fiasco at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). As recently as ten years ago, researchers at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) were among the world’s leaders in the field of autonomous drones. But just as in the early days of computer technology, ETH lost this leading position as well. Once again, many of the researchers left Zurich, taking their expertise with them to the U.S. West Coast—to Google and Amazon—where they were offered more attractive working conditions than in drone-hostile Switzerland. Here in Switzerland, arguments about safety and privacy are repeatedly brought to the forefront—for example, by the Association of Bike and Pizza Couriers. But given the success of delivery drones abroad and the benefits they offer, such fears no longer hold much sway with large segments of the population. As early as ten years ago, Matternet estimated the cost of a 10-kilometer drone flight at just 25 rappen—an unbeatable price given a gasoline price of 4.40 francs and notoriously congested roads in a Switzerland with more than ten million residents.

Looking back today, it’s clear that an opportunity was missed ten years ago to make Switzerland a leading hub for autonomous drones. This is in contrast to the U.S., where the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held its first hearings on civilian drone use as early as 2014, which subsequently led to legislation that paved the way for today’s widespread use and successful commercialization. Nothing of the sort happened here, and as a result, Switzerland lags behind even developing countries in the use of civilian drones. It is to be hoped that the policymakers working with Lisa Bourdon will now succeed in bringing about a rapid shift in thinking and a breakthrough in this area.

Christoph J. Walther

In the absence of a DeLorean DMC-12 equipped with a working flux capacitor, the correspondent had to rely on a glance into a crystal ball for this report, but is looking forward to having the necessary equipment for future time travel.