Article:
Automated Delivery: Amazon’s Urban Stack

Author(s): Beverungen, Armin

Abstract

In recent years, Amazon has vastly expanded its last mile delivery capabilities. While much of its logistical infrastructure is concentrated outside of cities, with fulfilment centres impinging upon the fringes of urban areas, its more recent ex- pansion has brought Amazon right into cities. Amazon has built a material – both fixed and mobile – infrastructure that enables the flow of goods through the city and an algorithmic infrastructure that governs its last mile operations. In doing so, Amazon has enrolled existing infrastructural elements, transforming these along the way, and has introduced new elements in what now amounts to Amazon’s urban stack. This contribution explores three elements of this stack for last mile delivery – the door/porch, the locker and the van – to demonstrate how Amazon automates logistical cities. Once these elements become enrolled in this stack, au- tomation includes an attempted human automation through scripts and habits, and enables an extensive data extraction and continuous machine learning.

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BibTex
Beverungen, Armin: Automated Delivery: Amazon’s Urban Stack. In: Navigationen - Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften, Jg. 24 (2024), Nr. 2, S. 47-62. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/23305.
@ARTICLE{Beverungen2024,
 author = {Beverungen, Armin},
 title = {Automated Delivery: Amazon’s Urban Stack},
 year = 2024,
 doi = "\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/23305}",
 editor = {Bareikytė, Miglė and Bee, Julia},
 volume = 24,
 address = {Siegen},
 journal = {Navigationen - Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften},
 number = 2,
 pages = {47--62},
}
Keywords
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