Digital Work and Urban Delivery: Profile, Activity and Mobility Practices of On-Demand Food Delivery Couriers in Paris (France)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank your for this paper, the special attention to the mobility practices of riders is really an add on to the various paper in this field.

Do you have, by chance, more data concering changes due to the pandemic that could be included? First of all, your data seem quite old (from 2018) and this sector has changed drastically since 2020. Alternatively, you should include this as part of/extension of section 7.2.

Apart from that, there are some minor issues, e.g. the reference to section 6 in the introduction (line 55) is named as section 5 and the like

Author Response

Thank your for this paper, the special attention to the mobility practices of riders is really an add on to the various paper in this field.

Do you have, by chance, more data concering changes due to the pandemic that could be included? First of all, your data seem quite old (from 2018) and this sector has changed drastically since 2020. Alternatively, you should include this as part of/extension of section 7.2.

We have more recent data, however they are still under analysis and will be included in our next arricle. Therefore, we took your suggestion and added a sentence in the conclusive section (new research directions).

Apart from that, there are some minor issues, e.g. the reference to section 6 in the introduction (line 55) is named as section 5 and the like.

Thank you, we made the appropriate changes.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article entitled “Digital work and urban delivery: Profile, activity and mobility practices of on-demand food delivery couriers in Paris (France)” is an interesting article. However, there are some issues that should be addressed before publication. Please take in consideration the below suggestions:

-       The guidelines for authors should be followed. According to the Journal:

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105).

-       I suggest that authors present a research question in the introduction section. This research question/hypotheses must fill the GAP identified in the literature.

-       In the literature review, I would suggest the authors to focus the discussion on the topics of digitization and digital transformation. In that regard, my suggestion goes to https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43616-2_47(digitalization) and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.022 (digital transformation).

-       The authors must explain very well the reasons for the study to be carried out in 2018 and published in late 2022.

-       I appreciated the conclusions section and the fact that the authors divided them into “Policy challenges” and “Limitations and future research directions”. However, I would like the authors to consider whether it would not be better to incorporate a third subdivision: Theoretical and managerial contributions.

-       Finally, it would be interesting to include some comments regarding the generalization of results, given that the study is focused on the city of Paris.

Overall, the article is interesting to read and presents quite good results, although a little exploratory in my opinion.

Author Response

The article entitled “Digital work and urban delivery: Profile, activity and mobility practices of on-demand food delivery couriers in Paris (France)” is an interesting article. However, there are some issues that should be addressed before publication. Please take in consideration the below suggestions:

-       The guidelines for authors should be followed. According to the Journal:

In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [1], [1–3] or [1,3]. For embedded citations in the text with pagination, use both parentheses and brackets to indicate the reference number and page numbers; for example [5] (p. 10). or [6] (pp. 101–105).

This was done.

-       I suggest that authors present a research question in the introduction section. This research question/hypotheses must fill the GAP identified in the literature.

The following sentence was added in the abstract and in the introductuion: “The main objective is to show how mobility practices are shaped by digital work, and highlights new challenges for urban authorities.”

Moreover, the new “Main contributions” section in the conclusion now focuses on this aspect.

-       In the literature review, I would suggest the authors to focus the discussion on the topics of digitization and digital transformation. In that regard, my suggestion goes to https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43616-2_47(digitalization) and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.022 (digital transformation).

Thank you. The two references were added in the introduction, in order to better explain that our contribution concerns the environmental but also social sustainability of digital work in the food delivery sector.

-       The authors must explain very well the reasons for the study to be carried out in 2018 and published in late 2022.

An initial version of this article was rejected by another journal, and it took us time to improve the paper.

-       I appreciated the conclusions section and the fact that the authors divided them into “Policy challenges” and “Limitations and future research directions”. However, I would like the authors to consider whether it would not be better to incorporate a third subdivision: Theoretical and managerial contributions.

We rather added a “Main contributions” section in the beginning of the conclusion.

-       Finally, it would be interesting to include some comments regarding the generalization of results, given that the study is focused on the city of Paris.

We indicated that beyond the case study, our study raises important challenges regarding the contradiction between environmental and social sustainability objectives in the transportation sector.

Overall, the article is interesting to read and presents quite good results, although a little exploratory in my opinion.

Thank you, we appreciate.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors replied to my questions. Please do not forget to reference using numbers in square brackets, this version still has (author, date). Congratulations.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

This was done. References are bow in the appropriate format.

Thank you again for your comments and suggestions.