The past few years saw the market for delivery rapidly transformed. Acceleration in the rise in the number of users, consumer behavior modification and migration towards «economy of immediate access» made delivery services part of the backbone infrastructure of big cities.
But among the technology drivers that enabled these platforms to be scalable and efficient was real-time GPS tracking. With the added real-time location services and market growth, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Meituan and other similar companies have been able to reduce delays on delivery app investment, optimize logistics and improve customer satisfaction. It did not improve just the user experience — it established new market standards.
Such real-time transparency and predictability in the supply chain has already been well received by consumers, and more and more by investors as well. We now see billions of dollars entering the delivery ecosystem in the guise of venture rounds, IPOs, strategic mergers, and building a proprietary technology stack.
RTLS Market Environment and Delivery Services
The market size growth of delivery is shifting at light speed, and at the center of these operations are real-time technology. RTLS- and GPS-based technology infrastructure was once a “nice bonus” to set up the infrastructure for scalable foodtech, logistics, and e-commerce development services, that you can learn in the following page. We are not only seeing a demand explosion, but also a new technology revolutionizing the very core of delivery — from last mile to customer experience.
Delivery as an ecosystem
This is paired with this, the grocery and essentials market retailing (q-commerce) also being in a period of hypergrowth. It has more than tripled in size in just the last five years alone to more than $150 billion globally. It is not surge demand – it is re-charting the map on how the consumer is. Consumers no longer are accepting delays. They are demanding real-time feedback, live ETA and complete transparency across each touchpoint.
Geolocation competitive advantage
RTLS integration, apart from enabling faster delivery, gives companies a competitive advantage. Route optimization, reduced response time, reduced fleet cost and enhanced load forecasting make real-time GPS a business enabler rather than background technology.
Why it is important to IT professionals
For engineering teams, this opens up new opportunities and challenges: from building fault-tolerant infrastructure to creating predictive logic from geodata. As the demand for «smart delivery» is growing, it is the solution architects, DevOps, and data engineers who are emerging as the key players in the fight for market growth drivers share.
Real-time GPS tracking: efficiency driver
Operational effectiveness is one success driver that matters to the delivery business. In a scenario of plenty of competition and an expectation of instant service, it is real-time technology that serves as a strategic differentiator. Of the most important – and most under-appreciated on the surface – is real-time GPS tracking.
Routing optimization – lower costs, faster speed
New delivery software features GPS chips and traffic-traffic, weather, order bunching and customer choice-driven dynamic routing logic. It not only reduces the route – it reduces miles, saves fuel and allows drivers to get more work in an amount of time. Libraries such as Mapbox, HERE or Google Maps tracking API with open-routing logic-enabled libraries provide developers with flexibility and low-level control to the delivery process.
Improve ETA precision – transparency to all stakeholders
Integrated GPS facility allows providing Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) with maximum precision, i.e., with waiting time at restaurants and delivery points. It gives a feel of transparency to the customer as well as to the service – fewer cancellations due to ambiguity.
Behavioral analysis and machine learning
The aggregated GPS data in real-time are input to the ML models, predicting user behavior, order density of the area, and optimal courier allocation. Data directly impact metrics: SLA, retention, conversion rate.
Integration with logistics and support
With real-time positioning, support services can respond in real time to deviations – from delays to route refusals. That is important when building a business, where every single percent of SLA is millions.
Expansion trends and behavior: new expectations around delivery
Development of delivery applications today is not so much due to the possibility of technology, but as much due to the fact that expectations of users have totally shifted. We observe that not just speed and convenience, but also personalization, flexibility, and predictability take center stage.
1. Towards «on-demand» culture
Consumers are increasingly seeking instant gratification – food, food, or medicine. “Here and now” culture is no longer the exception: now it’s the norm. This creates pressure on solutions to deliver the most accurate tracking of couriers in real time, change the flight path and overcome logistics bottlenecks on time.
2. Hyper-local delivery as a new norm
The hyper-local delivery segment is deeply involved — where the distance of 1-3 km is covered by products. The space requires GPS systems to be in their finest precision and platforms to switch between local players with ease. Real-time GPS tracking of firms at the community level provides speed along with customers’ confidence.
3. Subscriptions and personalization breed loyalty
There is an increasing trend of subscription plans: DashPass, Wolt+, Glovo Prime — kinds of services that make delivery not just convenient but profitable. These services allow for customer retention by tracking their behavior and sending them geolocation- and order history-based personalized offers.
4. Growing demands for transparency and control
The modern user expects to get more than a «on the way» message. He expects to see an exact arrival time, a map of the route and even a photo of the courier. This puts additional pressure on the application architecture, but also promises room for advanced analytics and UI innovations.
Operational and technology risks: what holds back growth
Although much progress is being made, the in-the-field use of real-time GPS within scalable logistics systems is hindered by a series of obstacles, investor insights and technical personnel must consider as part of their equation from startup funding.
1. Scalability in urban environments
In high-density population megacities, the precision of the GPS signal can be significantly degraded by high-density development («urban canyons» effect) and network congestion. This affects route precision, which becomes a driver of longer delivery time and lower SLA predictability. These conditions are especially critical in e-grocery and Q-commerce, where one minute is spoilage risk.
2. Slow data processing
If the platform is not built on a low-latency infrastructure (e.g., through edge computing), real-time GPS accuracy data becomes stale in seconds. In high order density, this produces cascading failures: misrouting, inefficient delivery clustering, increased cost.
3. Regulatory constraints
With more volumes of geolocation data come more levels of regulatory interest. Solutions will have to be implemented with GDPR, CCPA and other requirements of data protection law in consideration. Organizations that do not observe Privacy by Design practices can face fines along with user mistrust.
What’s next: from 5G to autopilot drones
We are already knocking on the door of the next step in the evolution of real-time delivery. Not only technological breakthroughs, but also structural shifts, will be significant.
1. Deployment of 5G and edge infrastructure
New 5G networks make it possible to minimize latency and improve driver, customer, and platform communications stability. With it, one can create pure real-time logistics – on-demand analytics and route optimization are performed on the fly, in real-time at the network edge.
2. AI Forecasting and Adaptive Models
Machine learning is increasingly being applied to predict demand spikes (e.g., just before rain or late night), auto-routing of couriers between clusters and dynamic pricing. This reduces the load on commands and simplifies scaling.
3. Autonomous delivery vehicles
Delivery robots, drones, and autonomous cars are already being driven in the US, China, and the UAE. Combined with RTLS and AI engines, not only can they deliver, but also adapt to the traffic environment in real time. Not merely the «toys of the future», but the foundation for creating autonomous logistics networks.
Regional characteristics of investment
The growth model of delivery services is also diverse geographically. Though the principles remain the same — need for speed, convenience, and transparency — the funding rounds environment and scaling processes differ.
Asia – technologically driven scaling and state subsidization
China and Southeast Asia are not only fueled by private funds but also subsidized by government. The largest in China, Meituan, is going into developing its own AI chips and autonomous delivery vehicles. Its goal is to become independent of reliance on external suppliers and to create a vertically integrated delivery system, completely owned in real time.
The US – the fight for venture capital
The US market revolves around the likes of Uber Eats and DoorDash, with the prevalent strategy being that of a typical «last-mile» service. Investments are being made in creating an extensible, modular architecture for scaling to different types of delivery. Machine learning-based logistics and predictive model-based logistics are also being actively implemented for faster delivery ROI.
Europe – regulatory complexity and resilience
European tech startup ecosystem and investors have stricter GDPR, labor and antitrust requirements. However, companies like Glovo and Delivery Hero are finding ways to raise investment by highlighting green delivery, localized business models and flexible backend architecture solutions with local regulation in mind.
The Middle East and Latin America – a market for scale-up strategy
Local players, i.e., Talabat (MENA) or iFood (LATAM), benefit from strong expansion due to relatively low market saturation and high penetration of smartphones into the population. In these regions, investors plan aggressive scaling and building infrastructure from scratch, e.g., GPS solutions and fulfillment centers.
