Design real-time delivery tracking system

Q: Design real-time delivery tracking system

This question evaluates competency in designing scalable real-time location-tracking systems, covering skills such as real-time data ingestion and streaming, route and ETA computation, API design, data storage for historical playback, privacy-aware access control, and operational monitoring.

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Question

System Design: Real-Time Courier Route Visibility Platform

Context

Design a parcel delivery platform that gives customers and operations real-time visibility into each courier’s route and live ETA for orders. The system must handle tens of thousands of couriers concurrently.

Requirements

Mobile apps publish GPS updates reliably from the field.
Backend ingests, processes, and streams location data in near real-time.
Compute routes and ETAs; display to customers and ops dashboards.
Expose APIs (e.g., GET /couriers/{id}/trace, GET /orders/{id}/eta).
Address:
- Scale (tens of thousands of couriers)
- Data storage for historical playback
- Privacy and access control
- Latency vs. consistency trade-offs
- Offline mode and battery constraints
- Map matching and geofencing
- Failure handling and monitoring

Design real-time delivery tracking system

System Design: Real-Time Courier Route Visibility Platform

Context

Requirements

Solution

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Design real-time delivery tracking system

Overview

System Design: Real-Time Courier Route Visibility Platform

Context

Requirements

Solution

Comments (0)