1. What is Service time?

Service time is the time between the moment a driver approaches a stop and leaves the vehicle to perform the task, until the moment the driver comes back to the vehicle and departs for the next stop.

In other words, this is the estimated time needed to perform the task, including any activity done at the address like dropping a package or also installing it.

This time excludes the travel time (time spent on the road).

Some of the factors that can influence this time are the address, floor level, existence of an elevator, type of service, type of goods, ... Currently, this time is estimated by our customers and Urbantz uses it during the rounds creation.

The accuracy of time is really important when creating rounds as it has a big impact on the optimization and the estimation of the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival). For example, in a round with 50 tasks, if the service time is incorrectly estimated 2 minutes less, it means the round might accumulate 2 minutes delay with each task and finish 100 minutes later.

2. How to set up Service time

Manually: The dispatcher can manually enter the service time when creating or editing a task.

Announcement: In the announcement, the value can be provided by API or by file, based on the data provided via API. If the value is not provided it will assign the default value defined inside the flow.

Automatic calculation: The service time can be calculated automatically when creating or announcing a task based on certain rules. These rules are defined by defining a script inside the Admin screen. This screen is only available to internal Urbantz users and can be configured by your Customer Success Manager. Please reach out to your dedicated CSM for details.

When the automated calculation is enabled, the users will have the option to let the system calculate the service time for them or introduce a manual value when creating or updating a task. The Task update API also allows you to choose between both options.

3. Service time calculation

Service time depends on various factors, such as the nature of your deliveries, the services offered during the delivery, and where your recipients are located. Users who create or update tasks, as well as e-commerce sites that offer timeslots during checkout, might not always have access to this information.

Urbantz offers a scripting option that lets customers apply their business rules for calculating it. This script doesn't just apply when creating tasks like the announcement script; it also works when you're checking timeslot availability and updating your task details. This simplifies the integration in the webshop and ensures the tasks always have the right estimated time according to the rules.

The feature is configured in the Admin screen and available to Urbantz internal users only. The calculation can only be enabled when a script has been configured.

Once the script is in place and the feature enabled, it can be used in the following scenarios:

Timeslot Booking API: if the service time is not provided, it is calculated. If the calculation does not offer a result, the API will return an error.

Announcement: if the service time is not provided, it is calculated. If the calculation does not offer a result, the default service time configured in the Flow will apply.

Task update (API): the API has a field called recalculateServiceTime. When it is true, Urbantz recalculates the service time.

Task create / update (web application): the user has the choice to let Urbantz calculate the correct service time or manually override it to handle exceptions. To override it, just toggle it off.

4. Real service time

What is it?

The service time provided by the customer is always an estimation of the time needed. The real service time is not provided by the customer but calculated by Urbantz once the round is completed thanks to the tracking information obtained from the mobile app.

The feature calculates as accurately as possible the time the driver spent from parking the vehicle to the moment of departure. During this time, the driver could have executed one or multiple tasks if they were nearby and the driver didn't need to move the vehicle.

Calculations are based on GPS data like position, time, or speed; accuracy depends amongst others on the availability of GPS signal, the accuracy of addresses, and the driver's behavior.

How can it help you?

The objective of providing real service time to our customers is to help them improve the accuracy of the rounds. An accurate round increases the efficiency and satisfaction of the drivers due to the correct time estimation and also the recipient satisfaction as it is more likely that the ETA expectations are met.

Where to find it?

The real service time is calculated when the round is completed and the backend receives all the tracking information from the mobile application. The value can be found in the task list and task details.

There are 3 fields with the information on this calculation:

Real service time
It is the time the driver spent at the delivery address since parking the vehicle to departure that we calculated based on the data we have.

Confidence
It represents the level of confidence in the calculated service time. A low confidence can be due to a lack of tracking information, unexpected driver behavior, or multiple tasks completed at the same address.

Tasks in the same stop
Specifies the number of tasks that were completed during this time without moving the vehicle

Calculating Real Service Time

Wait until the round is completed and every tracking point is sent from the mobile app.
Get the onsite time (if available) and the closure time (when the task was completed).
Find tracking points recorded around that time (closure time and onsite). E.g a for a task with onsite 11:00 and completed at 12:00 look for tracking points between 10:50 and 12:10.
Look through these tracking points to find 'intervals'. Intervals are consecutive tracking points that match some conditions. The conditions in this case are below a certain speed (5 km/h) and within a certain distance of the task location (200m).
Choose the interval that covers the greatest period of time. This is our Real Service Time.

5. The difference between Service Time and Real Service Time

The difference between service time and real service time is that the first is forecasted and the second is the actual duration.

The (Standard) Service Time: time the customer forecasted and sent to Urbantz. This time is used in the optimization.

Real Service Time: time calculated after the delivery is done, based on the GPS info registered (when the driver arrived at the location and when the driver left). The objective is to be able to adapt the forecasted service time based on real data and improve the accuracy of the time needed, to create better and more accurate rounds.

For any questions on the functionalities above please reach out to your Customer Success Manager, respectively to the Support team.