International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR)

Weather, Urban Congestion, and the Everyday Risks of Delivery Work

This study examines how weather conditions and urban congestion shape the everyday risks experienced by app-based delivery workers in Varanasi. With the rapid expansion of food, grocery, and parcel delivery platforms, thousands of workers in Varanasi navigate extreme temperatures, monsoon disruptions, chronic traffic bottlenecks, and narrow, uneven lanes while operating under strict algorithmic time pressure. Drawing on qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with Swiggy, and Zomato workers, participant observation at key hotspots, and contextual analysis of weather and traffic patterns, the study reveals how environmental conditions and infrastructural constraints interact with platform logics to intensify occupational hazards. Workers report heat stress, fatigue, accidents, harassment, delayed mobility, and health deterioration, which are further amplified during peak-hour congestion and severe weather events. Findings show that while workers develop informal coping strategies and collective networks, the risks remain structurally embedded due to inadequate social protection, algorithmic control, and the fragmented urban landscape of Varanasi. The study contributes to debates on urban precarity, platform capitalism, and risk society by demonstrating how gig workers become frontline negotiators of environmental volatility and urban disrepair. It argues for policy interventions including weather-based allowances, fairer incentive systems, improved road infrastructure, and stronger labour safeguards to ensure safer and more equitable working conditions in the city’s evolving digital service economy.