A collision between a bus and a delivery robot took place in Tallinn on Monday, injuring several people. The robotic courier that caused the accident left the scene before the police arrived.
The incident took place at around 6 p.m. at a pedestrian crossing at the intersection of Luise and Tehnika streets in the city center, municipal transport company Tallinn Transport (TLT) said.
The Bolt delivery robot approached from Tehnika tänav and entered the crossing on a red light. This was confirmed by both the bus driver and other road users, TLT said.
The bus driver tried to prevent an accident and braked sharply, which caused several passengers standing on the bus to fall. Up to nine were injured, TLT said.
Video footage (see above) from the bus shows the vehicle and the robot colliding, and the robot being pushed along the road.
The delivery robot then left the scene.
"If a participant in a traffic accident leaves the scene without fulfilling the obligations prescribed by law, this may constitute an offense," the TLT spokesperson said.
TLT board member Andrei Novikov told ERR's Russian service the circumstances of the incident must be established by the police.
"The bus collided with a delivery robot. As a result, passengers fell over. The robot fled, if you can put it that way. That means it drove away after the collision. The incident is currently being investigated. The robot is at fault in any case. The police will probably investigate why this happened," he said on Tuesday.
The last reported collision between a bus and delivery robot was in April 2020 in Tallinn's Mustamäe region. A delivery robot drove into the bus's wheel but no one was injured.
'Exceptional situations do occur'
Pepe Aaviksoo, head of operations at Starship Technologies, which designs the delivery robots, said illuminated advertisements and traffic lights were behind the delivery robot's wrong decision.
It was dark at the time of the accident, and there was an illuminated advertisement behind the traffic lights at the intersection.
In addition, the traffic lights for pedestrians and cars were in the same line of sight. The robot misread the traffic light.
At the moment it crossed the road, there were also no cars moving toward the robot, so it decided to cross.
Aaviksoo said the lighting conditions and the angle at which the robot was positioned played a role.
"There are many lessons to be learned, but exceptional situations do occur," he told Thursday's "Aktuaalne kaamera."
Aaviksoo added that the robot's light sensitivity was not working as it should have and had changed for some reason. This will now be fixed.
He also denied the robot left the scene after the accident, saying it stayed there for approximately 10 minutes,
"After the robot was involved in the incident, it contacted the back-office team, whose task was to move the robot off the road to a safe location," he explained.
This meant that the robot had to move away from the middle of the road, and it waited by the curb.
"From our perspective, the situation was clear, as indicated by the fact that the bus left the scene and we did not detect any rescue vehicles or police at the scene," Aaviksoo explained.
This article was updated to add additional comments from Pepe Aaviksoo.
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