Assessing the inequalities in access to online delivery services and the way COVID-19 pandemic affects marginalization

Ceren Altuntas Vural,Árni Halldórsson,Ivan Sanchez-Diaz

doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.05.007

Ceren Altuntas Vural, Árni Halldórsson + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.05.007

Copy DOI

Journal: Transport Policy	Publication Date: May 16, 2021
Citations: 24	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: Chalmers University of Technology

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of incorporating online home delivery services (OHDS) into the concept of accessibility and marginalization. The authors propose a method to quantify access to OHDS and assess levels of inequalities in access to OHDS using data from OHDS providers in the pharmaceutical and food sectors, as well as from transport operators delivering parcels. The Västra Götaland Region in the West coast of Sweden is used as a case study. The results show significant inequalities in access to OHDS. Moreover, there are segments of population under a compound marginalization during the COVID-19 pandemic due to (i) limited accessibility to OHDS services, (ii) high incidence of COVID-19 cases in their area that makes physical visits to a store a risk activity, and (iii) high vulnerability (e.g., high share of individuals older than 65). These results reveal a need for the public sector to prioritize innovations in services that target specific clusters of the population that are vulnerable and marginalized, but also shows the imminent risk for some of these segments during the pandemic.

Highlights

Ensuring good access to food, shops, prescribed drugs, and other goods to members of a society is fundamental for quality of life and for economic development (Geurs, 2006)
Accessibility has traditionally focused on ensuring that people can travel to destinations that offer opportunities and sup plies, the fast development of e-commerce calls for an additional dimension that focuses of accessibility to online home delivery services (OHDS)
Discussion and policy implications The implementation of the method proposed to the Vastra Gotaland Region (VGR) case study and the analysis reveal a significant variation in the access to OHDS across postcodes in the first wave of the pandemic

Summary

Introduction

Ensuring good access to food, shops, prescribed drugs, and other goods to members of a society is fundamental for quality of life and for economic development (Geurs, 2006). If companies see an opportunity to increase sales by offering home delivery services and profit offsets the logistics costs, they will do it. This is highly determined by location and density (Hesse, 2002; Cardenas et al, 2017). If companies cannot deliver or find a logistics service provider that can deliver the goods at profitable cost, they will not serve those areas This logic is reasonable in a business environment, there are cases in which this ends up marginalizing some segments of the population that cannot get home deliveries of basic goods, such as medicine and food. As customer of ferings of basic goods via online platforms has increased, accessibility and marginalization should be studied from a land use, and a transportation planning perspective and from an access to OHDS perspective

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion