Another “Stanton Thought” conversation popped up this week, this time with a co-worker.
As we were walking to lunch, we saw a delivery driver get stopped by a policeman. The policeman was telling the delivery driver to stop so he can issue him a ticket for driving on the sidewalk. The delivery driver was trying his best to get away, alternating between backing up and driving forward around the policeman, all while yelling that he’s going to be late soon. At the end, he manages to get away (I was super impressed) while the policeman speaks into his walkie talkie, stating the license plate of the moped.
This episode started the conversation of how much pressure the delivery drivers have. They are timed by the platform, often pushing them to take shortcuts that are unsafe or on pathways not designed for mopeds. Penalties for late delivery is a couple deliveries, and a traffic violation ticket is similar.
So is there a way to solve this? One of the potential problems is how much time is given per delivery. The system optimizes the delivery drivers for shorter routes. On the flip side, delivery drivers will try to optimize their routes by taking as many orders as possible, so they are technically pushing themselves to the limit.
When we saw what was happening with the delivery driver and policeman, there were two thoughts. Firstly, it’s too bad that we have to be punishing the people who are trying so hard to make ends meet. Secondly, this is a bigger systematic problem that probably will not be solved by just punishing the riders.
What if instead of punishing the riders directly, the police punished the companies behind the riders? Instead of trying to get 50 RMB per ticket, the tickets get consolidated into a larger ticket fining the company? Woudln’t that create a lot more incentive for the company to provide more structure and requirements into safety and road choice of these drivers? They have the data anyways, so they know exactly when each driver is going the wrong direction on a road, is traveling through pedestrian sidewalks, etc. Wouldn’t punishing the company make for a more impactful result?