Laetitia Dablanc

This study examines trends in shopping-related travel behaviour across France, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland, using harmonised national travel survey data from the early 2000s to the 2020s. By stratifying the analysis by urbanisation level, gender, age, household type, and income, we investigate how shopping travel behaviour has changed. By analysing trends in four countries, we aim to reduce the noise of local issues such as data quality, and try to interpret changes with social and policy events and trends. Across all investigated countries, except Switzerland, shopping trip frequencies have declined, with similar patterns observed across gender and urbanisation levels. While women historically undertook more shopping trips than men, a convergence between genders has emerged over time. Older adults devote a larger share of their travel to shopping and increasingly rely on cars. While higher incomes were generally associated with more driving, this pattern is changing. Higher income groups tend to have increased their walking and cycling share more, although this depends on the level of urbanisation and varies by country. Within countries, shopping frequencies differ between urban and rural areas to differing extents. In Switzerland, for example, urban residents have much higher shopping rates compared to those living in rural areas, while the gap is smallest in Norway. Differences in trip frequency, distance, and mode over time reflect varying national contexts and are discussed in relation to e-commerce growth, retail decentralisation, and rising car ownership. These findings highlight the complex nature of shopping-related travel and the circumstances in which travel behaviour aligns or differs across Europe.

This chapter focuses on a French case of delivery parking policy, which is symptomatic of a transport policy impasse: a policy that is so under-implemented and poorly enforced that it cannot be considered as functioning. The analysis is based on the evaluation of an experiment made in 2022 in Paris. Delivery spaces connected to an app available to delivery drivers and law enforcement were implemented in a dense part of the city. The experiment was technically successful. However, with less than five uses per day, the experiment failed to catch the interest of delivery drivers. This case is representative of the legal and institutional difficulties of parking policy in France, which exist to a lesser degree in other European countries. Paris is rightly known for its fight against the dominance of private cars. But behind this reputation lie sectoral failures that have negative impacts on city life.

E-commerce is simultaneously creating a new retail landscape through digitalization and new consumption and distribution practices and a new freight landscape in terms of the structuring of demand, the location characteristics of warehouses and distribution centers, and the handling of the last-mile segment in dense urban areas. Amazon represents all these developments in retail and e-commerce, being a dominant player in the e-commerce sector. This research, therefore, focuses on the evolution of Amazon’s logistics system, and particularly the geography of Amazon’s warehouses, marked by an expansion of the spatial footprint of the warehouses and by a functional specialization of its logistics system. From the analysis of Amazon’s logistics system, we understand how strong the spatial footprint of e-commerce is and we can confirm some of the major processes affecting the e-commerce sector. With the empirical spatial analysis, we identify through cartographic representations several spatial logics of Amazon’s logistics system: (i) a dual spatial rationale of networking and concentration of logistics warehouses, with the development of clusters of warehouses around major transport infrastructures and the creation of a more or less fine network of warehouses, particularly in urban areas; (ii) a dual spatial rationale that focuses both on the outskirts of metropolitan areas and on dense urban centers; (iii) the emergence of regionalized logistics strategies and differentiated spatial patterns regarding the type of logistics facility.

This article aims to analyze the opportunities related to improvement in the decarbonization strategies of the logistics sector, considering the economic, environmental, social, and technological challenges in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Uruguay. An original survey of 464 logistics companies involved in e-commerce in these four countries was carried out. From an economic point of view, companies have started to understand that being greener is not just a slogan but can be an opportunity for growth. The social pressure of customers for more sustainable supply chains forces companies to look for alternatives to reduce their environmental footprint. Finally, adding technology makes it possible to measure and monitor parameter indicators and look for alternatives to improve them (such as routing algorithms, electric vehicles, smart lockers, etc.). Decarbonization in the e-commerce logistics sector in Latin American countries still has room for improvement (for example, using metrics and electric vehicles) to match the levels of companies with similar characteristics in European, Asian, or North American countries.

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Platform-based fast delivery is rapidly developing in many cities across the world, especially in the food sector. Based on two questionnaire surveys conducted in 2020 and 2021 over 300 and 500 couriers, respectively, this article analyses the profile, motivations and activity patterns of couriers working in Paris (France), with a focus on mobility patterns and the impacts of the pandemic. The main results are threefold. Firstly, we confirm that platform-based delivery is mostly a temporary activity and a way to find a student job or enter the labor market for male young people of foreign origin. We also show than self-employment is not the only professional status. Secondly, our findings highlight the close links between platform-based delivery and mobility patterns. Platform-based delivery work not only requires long-hours of operation and many kilometers on the road to get sufficient income. It is a dangerous activity with high risks of road accidents. Many couriers become illegal in order to increase their income by using motorized two-wheelers that are not authorized by French law. Moreover, we show a growing use of shared bikes which seems to be a great supporting tool for couriers who start their activity or have a problem with their own bike. Thirdly, our study underlines that the pandemic prompted many students to become platform-based delivery couriers to compensate for the lack of student jobs. It also deteriorated the working conditions of the majority of platform-based couriers. The conclusion discusses some urban policy implications and proposes new avenues for research in terms of topics and methods.