A project seeks to capture the many hazards faced by Deliveroo riders

“We’re all together. Not just the Brazilians.” said Johann Mauricio, a 21-year-old Deliveroo rider.

He motioned to the group he had been chatting to at the bottom of O’Connell Street, a common rest stop between deliveries for those who are far from home.

More than 20 people parked up and sat on the steps of the Daniel O’Connell monument, laughing and rolling cigarettes during the pre-dinner lull.

“Over there, there’s other nationalities. People from Bangladesh,” he said, pointing to the next statue. “And there’s some African guys.”

Mauricio arrived three months ago from a small town in Brazil and it was his first time leaving the country. He thought he would land a different job, he says, but it was difficult.

His roommate was already riding and told him it was the easiest way to start making money— sign up, rent a bike, and get moving.

Mauricio is happy enough with his job, he says.  He likes exploring the city on bike and the diverse and close community that he’s met. But he’s also aware of how exposed he is, he says.

“Usually drivers, they really don’t respect us. Pedestrians too. Almost all of the time, even when they don’t have a light, they still go through. It’s only a bike.”

Also, road design pushes him towards vehicles, and young teenagers harass them, which has taken a physical and mental toll, he says.

His blonde hair and neutral polished, self-taught English hasn’t protected him from discrimination either, he says.  “It’s the bag,” he says, pointing to the branded cube.

On top of all that, he was attacked just meters away from where he was standing now, he says.

He said he was picking up a delivery from the McDonalds on O’Connell Street when someone grabbed his bag from behind. He fell over and then they punched him in the face, he says.

Other riders came running but the attacker pulled a knife. “It wasn’t worth it,” he said.

McDonalds refilled the order, he delivered it, and then he went home. He didn’t work the next day. “It still bothers me,” he said.

Researchers at University College Dublin have been trying to capture the myriad of challenges like these that are faced by Deliveroo drivers in the city.

The Voice of the Cavaleiro, a six-month pilot project which ran from July 2024 to January 2025, combined interviews and technology to study the hazards facing the riders during long days outdoors around Dublin.

The data is still being processed and they had a limited number of participants but, with those caveats, there is early evidence, said Jeremy Auerbach, one of the UCD researchers on the project.

Their findings show that Deliveroo riders are consistently exposed to dangerous levels of pollution, dangerous traffic, and unpredictable interactions with the public, he said.

One of the most fulfilling parts of the project which they are still working on is a map with real-time incidents reported by riders, says the other researcher on the project, Lucas Nascimento.

Why do it?

Auerbach, a UCD professor at the school of geography, got the idea for the project after he began cycling to work and around the city.

He moved to Dublin from the United States three years ago, he says.

“I saw the lack of infrastructure for cycling in the city, and then, you know, the number of riders, the delivery riders around, and the tensions between the riders and cars, and everything else going on in the city,” Auerbach said.

Auerbach tried to talk to riders at intersections but he didn’t get far, he says. He was held by by the language barrier or they were just busy, he says.

Then he met visiting PhD candidate Lucas Nascimento, over for a semester abroad from his home university in Brazil, the State University of Campinas.

Nascimento was already focusing his PhD on Deliveroo riders and the gig economy in Brazil.

But, he said, “It was a coincidence to see so many Brazilian riders doing this in Dublin. It was a blessing.”

Delivery riders can be out for long hours, says Auerbach. “They’re getting exposed to all these noxious fumes, right? They’re sitting there at intersections and the cars are idling.”

Nascimento conducted long interviews with riders while Auerbach, he says, was “the cyberpunk guy”.

They fitted the bikes with sensory equipment to detect air pollution, how close cars got, and to track noise, and riders’ heartbeats.

Because they need the data to be accurate, they also needed riders who would be consistent and use the technology. “[People] who we can trust to put these devices on the bikes,” said Nascimento.

During the pilot project, they only hooked up two riders with the medley of trackers, but Lucas hopes in the future, there will be at least ten riders with sensors providing data.

Staying healthy

The research, which was funded through the European Union’s Impetus program, puts a spotlight on the bad air quality in parts of the city. It is worst around the Guinness Factory and near Trinity College, says Nascimento.

Drivers talked about frequent health issues and difficulties accessing care for those, he said. “Flus, infections on throats.”

“But also about the health system in Ireland, which is very expensive, very expensive,” he says.

The steep costs means riders avoid seeking medical care, he says. Instead, they tend to work to protect their health with kit, and tell new riders to do the same.

“Get your clothes and good clothes, wind proof, waterproof, get good socks, get good gloves, and take care of yourself.” said Nascimento. That’s the message that they share.

Nascimento is particularly excited about an online map that riders are helping create by inputting their experience, he says.

The plan is for the map to be only accessible to riders. They can share real-time information about dangerous intersections, inappropriate customers, or places where cops often stop riders to assess their bikes and visa statuses.

They can also map where attacks have taken place, he says.

“The teenagers who are very hostile against the immigrants,” says Nascimento.

Combining these interviews and the data should help them to understand the very particular cluster of issues associated with riding, he says.

The co-created map is ongoing, and they want riders to keep contributing so it becomes an industry-wide tool, particularly for new inexperienced riders, he says.

Auerbach said that overall, despite these many hazards and the housing crisis and the challenges of being new, he hears really positive feedback from the overwhelming majority of riders.

Some riders had a different Dublin t-shirt on every time he met them, he says. “They love it here, even considering all the hardships, right, coming from beautiful Brazil, beaches and, you know, sun, all this stuff.” Auerbach said.

“Coming here, they love it. They absolutely love it. There’s a lot of opportunities, right? Even though it’s hard work,  he said.“

Nascimento saw many the same issues he sees at home, he said, and its not a Dublin issue or a Sao Paolo issue but a world-wide issue with capitalism.

He said that, for him, his main takeaway is that Brazil isn’t so bad either.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.