How ETA is calculated?

Hi,

How does Stuart calculate ETA? Is there a principle way of calculation?

Hi there,

Thanks for your question - yes, ETAs are an always evolving topic within Stuart. Let me walk through some of the higher level points about our methodology here:

  • Firstly as you may have seen, we have both our Pre-Order ETAs and our live ETAs when the driver is en route. These are calculated differently.

  • For Pre-Order ETAs, this is our estimated time to have a driver reach the origin point for a particular delivery if that order were to be created now. There are a few variables involved with this calculation, but our model generally looks at the amount of nearby invitable drivers there are, their relative distances to the pickup location and the estimated speed of their vehicles

  • For live ETAs to the origin and destination after a driver has been assigned, this is a calculation based on the mapped route from where the driver is now combined with the speed profile of both the driver and the roads they must take along that route

Hope that gives you some insights - let us know if you’d like any other information based on those points

Kind Regards,
James

How does the wait at pickup estimated in live ETA?

Interesting question! In the live ETAs, it’s not something that is taken into consideration right now, for a couple of reasons:

  1. It’s difficult for us to provide a direct estimate of wait at pickup for individual orders because then the ETA would be influenced by operational factors on the client side that would typically be outside of our knowledge and control

  2. Generally, we only expect wait at pickup to be a couple of minutes which is a reasonable tolerance for last mile services, which would self correct as the driver begins the journey to the destination.
    If it’s far longer than that, then we would typically expect to work through together with clients to reduce the wait at pickup factor by looking at the operational flow rather than build it into the model, as long wait at pickup times have other impacts on success