Order Now, Pickup in 30 Minutes: Managing Queues with Static Delivery Guarantees

The shift in the restaurant industry toward digital ordering argues for major changes in how orders are managed. The main difficulty in managing queues in online food-ordering services arises from the fact that, as opposed to dine-in customers, online customers are promised a pick-up time; customers are dissatisfied if the order is not completed by that time and are also dissatisfied if the order is completed much ahead of time because the food loses freshness. In “Order Now, Pickup in 30 Minutes: Managing Queues with Static Delivery Guarantees,” Farahani, Dawande, and Janakiraman propose and analyze strategies for managing queues in online food-ordering services with the goal of keeping customer satisfaction as high as possible.