Lyft: Judging Whether Driver Supply Meets Delivery Demand by Zone and Hour

You are a product manager at Lyft. How would you tell whether there are enough drivers to handle the number of deliveries being requested in a particular area at a particular time? Describe what you would measure, how you would define "enough," and how the answer would feed into decisions. ```hint Two sides of one market A shortage and a surplus each hurt someone. Think about what each one looks like from the requester's side and from the driver's side. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - What counts as a delivery here: passenger rides, food or package orders, or all of them? - Is this a city where Lyft already operates and has history, or a market that has not launched yet? - Is the question about balance in the next few minutes, or about planning driver supply days and weeks ahead? - How small is an "area": a neighborhood-sized zone, or a whole city? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A two-sided definition of "enough" with a target experience for requesters and a healthy level of busy time or earnings for drivers. - Specific marketplace metrics tracked per zone and time window, separating early warning signals from outcomes. - A way to estimate the drivers needed from demand and time per trip, and to forecast that need ahead of time. - Telling a true shortage apart from drivers being in the wrong place or from a matching problem. - The levers used when balance breaks, and how to test them when both groups share one market. ### Follow-up Questions - City-wide wait times look fine, but one neighborhood has long waits every Friday night. How do you tell a shortage from a distribution problem? - Higher prices during a shortage stop some people from requesting at all. How do you measure the demand you never saw? - How would you test a new driver incentive when drivers in the test and control groups compete for the same requests?