The Invisible Riders: Platform work, labour conditions and sustainable last-mile delivery in Rome

The rapid growth of platform-based food delivery has reconfigured urban freight transport by reshaping last-mile operations, labour conditions and sustainability challenges in cities. Research has only partially examined how social, environmental and economic outcomes interact within these platform-mediated delivery systems. This paper addresses this gap by analysing food-delivery riders through a Triple Bottom Line framework and drawing implications for sustainable urban freight policy. Using 402 rider interviews conducted in Rome, the study combines observable-group profiling and Latent Class Cluster Analysis to compare job satisfaction, perceived accident risk, fatigue, operational carbon dioxide emissions, earnings and tipping outcomes. Three motivational profiles emerge: Flexibility-First Freelancers, Necessity-Driven Breadwinners and Convenience-Adaptive Seekers. Results show that rider citizenship status, platform use and work motivation are associated with different sustainability outcomes. Riders with Italian citizenship report higher perceived accident risk and higher estimated operational carbon dioxide emissions. Multiple-platform riders report higher earnings and higher estimated operational emissions. Necessity-driven riders combine weaker welfare conditions with no statistically distinct earnings advantage. Convenience-Adaptive Seekers show lower estimated operational emissions and higher tip frequency. These findings suggest that sustainable urban freight policy should not focus only on operational efficiency and emissions reduction. It should also address labour conditions, safety and distributional inequalities in platform-based delivery markets. The paper contributes a rider-centred perspective and argues that sustainable last-mile policy begins by making the workers visible on whom the system depends.