Scenario
A ride-hailing marketplace observes a 20% month-over-month increase in rider wait time (time from request to driver arrival).
Tasks
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Root-cause analysis: How would you structure an analysis to identify the drivers of the 20% wait-time increase?
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Pricing assessment: Assuming pricing may be a contributing factor, how would you evaluate the costs and benefits of moving from static to dynamic pricing?
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Experimentation: How would you design an experiment to validate whether dynamic pricing reduces ETA while controlling for demand–supply interference?
Clarifications and minimal assumptions
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Wait time/ETA = time from rider request to driver pickup.
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The marketplace is two-sided with riders (demand) and drivers (supply).
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Static pricing = fixed per-minute/per-mile with occasional promos; dynamic pricing = price multipliers that respond to local demand–supply conditions.
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Interference means that treating a subset (e.g., riders) can affect outcomes for others (e.g., by moving drivers), violating SUTVA if not addressed.