Design real-time delivery tracking system

Q: Design real-time delivery tracking system

This is a System Design interview question from Motive for Software Engineer roles. View the full question and solution on PracHub.

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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 (Locked)

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