The Obama administration is opening U.S. skies to more commercial drones with long-awaited regulations that the government hopes will spawn new industries for inspecting bridges, monitoring crops and taking aerial photography.

Product delivery-by-drone in urban areas may be possible within a few years if the U.S. government and the aviation industry agree to work cooperatively on the new technology, the chief of Google Inc.’s drone cargo project said Jan. 11.

Several other countries such as Canada and France have been faster to permit commercial drone flights than the United States, a government study found.

Radio interference from freight railroads may disable the automated solution Amtrak is finalizing to prevent high-speed derailments such as last month’s fatal accident in Philadelphia.

Amazon.com Inc. wants a chance to prove that a drone delivery service would be safer than the U.S. government thinks.

Amazon.com got a boost from U.S. regulators who granted the company permission to conduct test flights in its effort to expand research into the viability of delivery drones.