Better identify disruptions with Polygons for attended events
Better identify disruptions so your delivery and operations teams can react accurately
Have you ever been stuck in gridlock traffic in San Francisco because you didn’t realize the Chinese New Year Parade was occurring? From experience, I can tell you, it's not ideal. Now imagine if you are an Uber Eats driver and you get stuck in this same traffic? Not only is this highly frustrating for the driver, but this has real business impacts for Uber Eats, including not meeting planned delivery times, unhappy customers from delays and a less efficient day for your drivers.
There are many events that impact a large area that can significantly impact roadways, cause traffic and cause delays if you are unaware of the event. So how do you avoid being caught off guard with unnecessary and avoidable delays? PredictHQ Polygons.
PredictHQ polygons provides on-demand companies in the gig economy with intelligent, geo-specific event data so they can better plan delivery routes, avoid disruptions, and deliver on time.
What are event Polygons?
Insight into individual events is useful, but many types of events don’t occur neatly at a single point on a map. Point event locations are represented by latitude and longitude coordinates. Area events such as marathons and parades impact areas, regions, multiple blocks and sometimes even entire cities. PredictHQ’s Polygons enable you to see the full area impacted by an event represented as a shape, giving you a much more accurate picture of impact.
You can see in the example below that the OC marathon covers several blocks and neighborhoods within Costa Mesa that will have an impact on road closures, typical delivery routes and the amount of people within a given area.
Here are a few more examples of polygons for attended events:
Boston Marathon - 500,000 attendees
Tour La Nuit - 50,000 attendees
NYC Pride Parade - 2,000,000 attendees
Fremont Solstice - 22,500 attendees
Why better understanding potential disruptions is key to beating your competition
As we know, the gig economy and any business that supported delivery skyrocketed during the pandemic and that increased demand hasn’t really slowed down. Online ordering is a consumer behavior that has become ingrained in our cities. According to Statista, online grocery sales are expected to reach $59 billion dollars by 2023. The opportunity is there, but this also means the competition is there.
As a grocery, retail, cannabis or [insert anything] delivery company, if you are able to more consistently have shorter delivery times, better delivery time windows and deliver on time, you are going to increase customer satisfaction and influence repeat purchases. With PredictHQ Polygons, you can plan and optimize delivery routes automatically.
And this doesn’t just apply to grocery and retail delivery companies. On-demand businesses like ride sharing companies and scooter companies need to understand high demand and high foot traffic and population areas, as well as areas that could potentially cause a disruption in routes to ensure operations run smoothly. If you knew the start and end locations of a parade and the route along the way, you could strategically place your scooters in areas that you know people will be in and need to get to and from quickly.
Or if you are a ride sharing company, you can provide more accurate wait times, incentivize more drivers to be in areas expected to be filled with people and provide helpful context to your drivers around road closures and areas of disruption.
Polygons = increased efficiency = increased $$
At the end of the day, efficiency is the name of the game for on-demand businesses. If you are able to better identify disruptions ahead of time, your delivery and operations teams can react accurately and quickly. Delivery efficiency allows you to complete more customer requests per day, making customers happier and increasing revenue. The same applies to operation efficiencies. We encourage you to try PredictHQ polygons out to see how they may improve your workflow or the way you use PredictHQ.
