How many people come to our door?

Abstract

This paper analyzes the traffic generated by delivery services and the drivers of demand behind it. The evaluation is based on a regression analysis of four surveys conducted in Switzerland and Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic. The demand for delivery services has strongly increased in recent years. Despite the fact that a lot of research is addressing the question of more efficient business models to mitigate the negative implications of delivery services on traffic and environment, little is known about the actual traffic volume generated by delivery services and the drivers of demand. This paper analyzes these topics based on a regression analysis of survey data from four survey conducted in Switzerland and Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic. The applied regression models confirm the results of the descriptive analysis and show the impact of age, gender, income, education and family situation as well as the general shopping behavior on the demand for deliveries. Food orders are often made by younger people without children and lower education levels, while parcels are more often received by younger people with children, higher income and higher education levels. For both food and parcel deliveries, complementary effects between consumer behavior, online and in-store shopping can be observed.