Carnets de Géographes (Dec 2023)
Organisation spatiale du travail et précarité des chauffeurs-livreurs
Abstract
The figure of the long-distance lorry driver is generally associated with the operational autonomy and freedom that characterise the practice of the lorry driver, who operates at a distance from the customer. More recently, the figure of the delivery driver, who more often drives light commercial vehicles on local routes that are more closely supervised by the principal, has generally been described in contrast to this figure. This activity, which is associated with 'last mile' transport, suggesting that the driver only performs the final leg of the transport chain, is experiencing renewed interest with the rise of e-commerce. Moore and Newsome (2018) describe the deterioration of working and employment conditions for delivery drivers in the UK, linking this to massive outsourcing by employers. We seek to deepen the analysis by detailing the reasons for this casualisation. We show that it is linked to the implementation of subcontracting by transport groups, which takes a particular form for the last mile that we attempt to describe. We then focus on the spatial inequalities in the development of this process by analysing the way in which different factors (such as delivery speed, delivery density, route composition and company strategies) affect working conditions.
