Flipgig was a collaboration project between Lancaster University and University of Southampton funded by the EPSRC (EP/S027726/1).
Flipgig built on Freight Traffic Control 2050 (FTC2050), turning focus to the sustainability and fairness of gig economy last mile logistics. The project utilised a multidisciplinary approach of user research, transport research, operation research and HCI to consider how gig economy models in last-mile logistics can be made more fair and sustainable.
I worked with Adrian Friday, Carolynne Lord, Tom Cherret, Fraser McLoed, Andy Oakey, and Antonio Martinez-Sykora. Flipgig collaborated with Switch-gig contributing research team time in kind.
We worked directly with couriers across the UK in Edinburgh, Manchester and York.
Inclusive design - Couriers as co-researchers
We paid them fairly for their involvement in workshops, interviews and data gathering activities, at the Living Wage. We thank them greatly for their involvement and collaboration in our projects.
We worked with a range of non-academic collaborators including Gnewt Cargo (now part of Menzies Distribution), Menzies Distrbution, Hermes (now Evri), and Transport for London.
The project ran for a little over 2 years and focused on two parallel tracks:
- Working with couriers to understand their lived and working experiences to help inform technology design
- Developing optimisations for industry applications of last mile logistics that prioritised fair pay of workers
Me and Carolynne were interviewed and our work was covered in WIRED!