Deliveroo Promises to Track Illegal E-Bikes—But Who Checks the Checker?
Deliveroo says new technology will identify couriers using illegally fast e-bikes. The intention deserves support—but its announcement leaves unanswered questions about evidence, enforcement, appeals and whether a profitable delivery platform can regulate itself transparently.
Machines capable of motorcycle-like speeds should not be passing themselves off as ordinary electrically assisted bicycles. Legal riders pay for suitable machines, licences and insurance where required. Pedestrians and other road users deserve protection from vehicles operating outside the rules, while couriers themselves should not be exposed to unsafe conversion kits and questionable batteries.
Deliveroo’s new Ride Safe campaign recognises those concerns. The company is calling for the sale of dangerous conversion kits to the general public to be prohibited and says it will introduce technology capable of detecting when a rider sustains speeds that a bicycle or compliant e-bike could not reasonably reach.
If suspicious behaviour is detected, Deliveroo says it will contact the rider about their vehicle. Continued problems—or knowingly registering the wrong type of vehicle—could result in removal from the platform.
That sounds sensible. The unanswered question is how it will work.
What Is Deliveroo’s New Speed Technology?
Deliveroo’s official announcement uses the phrase “speed technology” but provides no meaningful technical explanation.
Couriers already use a smartphone app that records their location while they are online. That information helps Deliveroo allocate orders, calculate estimated arrival times and let customers follow their food. The new measure may therefore be less a new tracking system than a new use of data the platform already collects.
But location data can only show how a phone moved. It cannot inspect the motor, battery, controller or throttle attached to a bicycle.
A legal e-bike must stop providing electrical assistance above 15.5mph, but the bicycle itself is allowed to travel faster through pedalling, gravity or momentum. A fit cyclist descending a hill may record a perfectly legal speed that looks suspicious when separated from its surroundings.
Will Deliveroo analyse gradients, journey duration and GPS errors? What speed will trigger concern, and how long must it be maintained? Will a computer issue the warning automatically, or will somebody examine the complete journey first?
The announcement does not tell us.
Faster Deliveries Are Not Simply About Corporate Profit
It would be easy to present this as a straightforward conflict between road safety and Deliveroo’s profits. The reality is more complicated.
A courier works inside an environment governed by time. A restaurant may keep them waiting while an order is prepared. Traffic, road closures, lifts, security doors and customers who do not answer can consume minutes that the rider cannot recover. Another order may already be waiting, while the customer watches an estimated arrival time moving across a screen.
Couriers paid by the delivery have an obvious reason to complete more journeys. Restaurants want hot food collected promptly. Customers expect convenience and speed. Deliveroo needs the complete system to operate efficiently.
Nobody needs to issue an instruction saying “ride faster”. Pressure can emerge naturally from the way the work is organised and rewarded.
That does not excuse an illegal vehicle or dangerous riding. It does mean enforcement cannot concentrate exclusively on the individual courier while ignoring the environment influencing their decisions.
Will Deliveroo examine whether its estimated times, order allocation and payment structure contribute to the pressure? Will a rider delayed for 15 minutes at a restaurant subsequently appear unusually quick on the road because they are trying to recover lost time? Can a safety campaign succeed without addressing the working conditions surrounding the journey?
Suspicion Is Not Proof
Deliveroo says riders may be contacted about their vehicle when suspicious speeds are detected. What happens next is important.
Will the rider submit photographs and technical information, or must the bicycle be inspected? Who is qualified to decide whether a conversion is compliant? Could somebody temporarily restrict an illegal bike, provide evidence and then restore its performance afterwards?
There must also be a credible appeal process. Smartphone GPS is useful but imperfect, particularly among tall buildings and congested urban streets. A courier’s access to the platform may represent most of their income. Removal based upon an unexplained algorithm could have serious consequences for somebody who has done nothing wrong.
Conversely, a warning without meaningful verification may achieve very little. A determined user could change the vehicle registered on the account, share access with somebody else or move between platforms.
Deliveroo now says substitutes must register through its app, confirm their identity and complete right-to-work checks before making deliveries. That is a substantial improvement upon the earlier system, under which responsibility for checking substitutes was placed much more heavily upon account holders. Yet the history of rented and shared delivery accounts demonstrates why written rules need practical enforcement.
Can Deliveroo Be Trusted to Police Itself?
Self-regulation is not automatically worthless. Deliveroo possesses journey data that the police and local authorities do not, allowing suspicious patterns to be identified across thousands of deliveries. Used responsibly, that could make the company part of the solution.
The difficulty is that Deliveroo will apparently collect the data, define what looks suspicious, investigate its own couriers, decide the outcome and control how much information becomes public.
The organisations supporting Ride Safe—including Transport for London, London Fire Brigade and the GMB union—give the wider campaign credibility. However, the announcement does not say that any of them will independently audit the speed system or its results.
Will Deliveroo publish the number of journeys flagged, riders warned and accounts removed? Will it disclose how many riders successfully challenge an incorrect finding? Will independent experts assess whether the system is fair and effective? Will Just Eat and Uber Eats adopt comparable standards, or could a removed rider simply begin using another platform?
Without those answers, success may be impossible for the public to measure.
A Welcome Promise That Now Needs Substance
Deliveroo is right to acknowledge that illegal e-bikes create risks for compliant couriers, pedestrians and the reputation of urban two-wheeled transport. Calling for action on unsafe conversion kits is also legitimate, particularly where poorly matched batteries and chargers create a fire risk.
The announcement should therefore be welcomed—but not treated as proof that the problem has been solved. On the surface it almost feels like a PR excerise rather than a plan with any substance behind it. Without question, there needs to be total transparency on the structure and accountability of the scheme, as there is a clear conflict of interest from all angles. Then, there is the question of who will bear the cost of this extra auditing and administration.
At present, we have a promise to use largely unexplained technology, an unspecified enforcement process and no published method for independent scrutiny. Deliveroo may ultimately provide convincing answers to all of these questions. If it does, responsible riders should support the effort.
Until then, the most important part of Ride Safe is not what Deliveroo has announced. It is what the company does when safety, customer expectations, courier livelihoods and commercial efficiency pull in different directions.
Technology can identify a suspicious journey. Trust will depend upon what happens next.