Overview
Providing customers with a reliable estimated time of arrival (ETA) sets realistic expectations and improves their satisfaction and experience. Accurate ETAs also benefit dispatchers, as they help estimate when a driver will become available for new bookings.
MotionTools calculates ETAs for each stop of a booking and displays them on both the Dashboard and the Public tracking pages.
Quality of service levels
ETA service offers two quality levels: Basic and Accurate.
- On the Basic level, the service calculates arrival times using a straight line between stops. This level is enabled by default.
- On the Accurate level, the ETA is based on the actual route the driver is supposed to take. Accurate ETA calculations come with higher costs and are only available in our Enterprise plan. Please contact our Customer Success team if you’d like to switch to Enterprise.
ETA calculation principles
The initial ETA for each stop is calculated at the time of creating a booking and is based on the booking's scheduled start time. The ETA is recalculated on every major booking event, such as starting a booking, arriving at or departing from the stop, editing the route, and additionally every 8 minutes when a booking is En Route.
When estimating times, the ETA service takes into account stop durations, which are the average times that drivers need to complete a stop. You can define stop durations for each service you offer via the Dashboard (Settings → Service → Stops). For more information, see the Service article.
Finally, the ETA service takes into account the vehicle type of a tenant, which affects the average speed and expected route. Currently, the vehicle type is set globally for a tenant. Please contact our Customer Success team to ensure that the correct type is set for your tenant.
Fetching ETA from API
If you need to display ETA in your customer app, internal dashboard, or tracking page, you can fetch them directly from the API. For best practices, please refer to the Integrating ETA Service via API guide.
