A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment Process

With the rapid development of the Internet, businesses in the traditional catering industry are increasingly shifting toward the Online-to-Offline mode, as on-demand food delivery platforms continue to grow rapidly. Within these takeout systems, riders have a role throughout the order fulfillment pr...

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Main Authors: Dongyi Hu, Wei Deng, Zilong Jiang, Yong Shi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-06-01
Series:Systems
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/6/457
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author Dongyi Hu
Wei Deng
Zilong Jiang
Yong Shi
author_facet Dongyi Hu
Wei Deng
Zilong Jiang
Yong Shi
author_sort Dongyi Hu
collection DOAJ
description With the rapid development of the Internet, businesses in the traditional catering industry are increasingly shifting toward the Online-to-Offline mode, as on-demand food delivery platforms continue to grow rapidly. Within these takeout systems, riders have a role throughout the order fulfillment process. Their behaviors involve multiple key time points, and accurately predicting these critical moments in advance is essential for enhancing both user retention and operational efficiency on such platforms. This paper first proposes a time chain simulation method, which simulates the order fulfillment in segments with an incremental process by combining dynamic and static information in the data. Subsequently, a GRU-Transformer architecture is presented, which is based on the Transformer incorporating the advantages of the Gated Recurrent Unit, thus working in concert with the time chain simulation and enabling efficient parallel prediction before order creation. Extensive experiments conducted on a real-world takeout food order dataset demonstrate that the Mean Squared Error of the prediction results of GRU-Transformer with time chain simulation is reduced by about 9.78% compared to the Transformer. Finally, according to the temporal inconsistency analysis, it can be seen that GRU-Transformer with time chain simulation still has a stable performance during peak periods, which is valuable for the intelligent takeout system.
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spelling doaj-art-edc7694d3a51459cabff77e4d5ecf9f82025-08-20T03:26:52ZengMDPI AGSystems2079-89542025-06-0113645710.3390/systems13060457A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment ProcessDongyi Hu0Wei Deng1Zilong Jiang2Yong Shi3School of Big Data Statistics, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, Guiyang 550025, ChinaSchool of Big Data Statistics, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, Guiyang 550025, ChinaDepartment of Computer Science and Technology, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, Guiyang 550025, ChinaSchool of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, ChinaWith the rapid development of the Internet, businesses in the traditional catering industry are increasingly shifting toward the Online-to-Offline mode, as on-demand food delivery platforms continue to grow rapidly. Within these takeout systems, riders have a role throughout the order fulfillment process. Their behaviors involve multiple key time points, and accurately predicting these critical moments in advance is essential for enhancing both user retention and operational efficiency on such platforms. This paper first proposes a time chain simulation method, which simulates the order fulfillment in segments with an incremental process by combining dynamic and static information in the data. Subsequently, a GRU-Transformer architecture is presented, which is based on the Transformer incorporating the advantages of the Gated Recurrent Unit, thus working in concert with the time chain simulation and enabling efficient parallel prediction before order creation. Extensive experiments conducted on a real-world takeout food order dataset demonstrate that the Mean Squared Error of the prediction results of GRU-Transformer with time chain simulation is reduced by about 9.78% compared to the Transformer. Finally, according to the temporal inconsistency analysis, it can be seen that GRU-Transformer with time chain simulation still has a stable performance during peak periods, which is valuable for the intelligent takeout system.https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/6/457order fulfillmenttime chain simulationGRU-Transformermulti-point time prediction
spellingShingle Dongyi Hu
Wei Deng
Zilong Jiang
Yong Shi
A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment Process
Systems
order fulfillment
time chain simulation
GRU-Transformer
multi-point time prediction
title A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment Process
title_full A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment Process
title_fullStr A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment Process
title_full_unstemmed A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment Process
title_short A Study on Predicting Key Times in the Takeout System’s Order Fulfillment Process
title_sort study on predicting key times in the takeout system s order fulfillment process
topic order fulfillment
time chain simulation
GRU-Transformer
multi-point time prediction
url https://www.mdpi.com/2079-8954/13/6/457
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