How many delivery riders do you need each hour?
A delivery rider capacity plan answers one question for every hour of the day: how many riders must be on the road so orders leave on time without paying riders to wait. The answer depends on two numbers only: how many orders arrive in the hour, and how many minutes of rider time each order takes from pickup to being ready for the next one.
The planner works out the minutes per order from a typical trip, turns your hourly order profile into riders needed per hour, applies the UAE or Kuwait summer midday rule if you choose one, and builds the fewest fixed-length shifts that cover the day, with rider-hours, spare time and cost per order.
Why plan riders by the hour?
- Demand comes in peaks: lunch and dinner can bring two or three times the average hour. Staffing to the daily average leaves orders waiting at the peaks.
- Riders paid to wait cost the same: staffing every hour to the peak pays riders through the quiet afternoon.
- Shift length decides the waste: with two peaks a long single shift leaves spare hours between them; shorter or split shifts follow demand more closely.
- Gulf summer rules change the plan: in the UAE each rider can take only a few orders in the midday window, and in Kuwait delivery bikes are off the road at midday, so the same orders need more riders or other vehicles.
What inputs do you need?
| Input | Where to find it | Tip |
|---|---|---|
| Wait at pickup and handover | Order app timestamps: arrived at store, picked up, delivered | Use the median of a full week, by zone if they differ. |
| Distance and speed | Trip reports from tracking or the rider app | Average speed over the whole ride, not the road limit. |
| Orders per trip | Dispatch records | Batching depends on your rules and the platform's; see below. |
| Orders per hour | Order system, by hour of placement | Plan a normal day and a peak day (weekend, Ramadan, payday) separately. |
| Target busy share | Your own choice | A rider booked for 100% of the hour has no room for orders that arrive together. |
| Shift length and absence | Roster and attendance records | Absence counts riders who are rostered but do not ride. |
How does the planner calculate riders?
Minutes of rider time per order
Riders needed in each hour
The first line is Little's law: the average number of items in a system equals the arrival rate times the average time each item spends in it (L = λW). Here the items are orders, the arrival rate is orders per minute and the time is rider minutes per order, so the result is the average number of riders busy in that hour. Dividing by the target busy share keeps spare riders for orders that bunch together.
Summer midday rules
An hour that crosses the window counts its orders in proportion to the minutes inside it. In the UAE the planner raises every hour that touches the window to the riders the window needs, because a rider cannot pass orders on to a colleague once their limit is reached. It reads the 60 minutes as the rider's total delivery time in the window.
Shifts
With every shift the same length, covering the earliest short hour with shifts that reach as far forward as possible gives the fewest shifts for the day.
Gulf rules that limit riders
- UAE, 15 June to 15 September: under the midday break rules the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) set for delivery work, from 12:30 to 15:00 a rider must not be assigned more than three orders, total delivery time should not exceed 60 minutes, deliveries on foot are not allowed and riders cannot be made to work if they do not want to (Khaleej Times, 3 and 21 July 2026).
- Kuwait, 1 June to 31 August: delivery motorbikes may not operate between 11:00 and 16:00, as announced by the General Traffic Department of the Interior Ministry (People Matters, 1 June 2026).
- Saudi Arabia: the executive regulation for the delivery activity bars assigning more than one order at a time to a bike rider (Okaz, 25 September 2025). If that applies to your riders, set orders per trip to 1.
These rules change from year to year. Check the current text with the authority before you plan a season. For outdoor work bans in other Gulf countries, use the Midday Work Ban Shift Checker.
Sources
- J. D. C. Little, A proof for the queuing formula: L = λW, Operations Research 9(3), 1961, and Little's Law as Viewed on Its 50th Anniversary, Operations Research, 2011. Source: Project Production Institute reprint.
- MoHRE midday break rules for delivery riders: Khaleej Times, 3 July 2026, source, and 21 July 2026, source.
- Kuwait ban on delivery motorbikes 11:00–16:00, 1 June–31 August: People Matters, 1 June 2026. Source.
- Saudi delivery regulation, one order at a time for a bike rider: Okaz, 25 September 2025. Source. Last reviewed 21 October 2026.
Worked example: a zone with 400 orders a day
The defaults are examples; replace them with your own figures.
- A trip takes 6 min of waiting, 9.6 min riding out (4 km at 25 km/h), 3.6 min of handover for 1.2 orders, 0.8 min between drops and 7.7 min riding back (80%): 27.7 min, or 23.1 min per order. One rider delivers 2.6 orders an hour at full time.
- At 20:00, 60 orders need 60 × 23.1 ÷ 60 = 23.1 riders busy. At an 80% busy share that is 29 riders, the peak of the day. At 16:00, 15 orders need 8.
- Over the 13 hours the zone needs 199 rider-hours, or 2.0 orders per rider-hour.
- With 8-hour shifts the plan is 44 riders (11:00, 12:00, 13:00 and 16:00 starts), or 50 on the roster with 10% absence. That pays 352 rider-hours for 199 needed: 43% spare time, because one shift cannot cover both peaks. At $7 an hour the riders cost $6.16 an order.
- With the UAE midday rule, 95 orders fall between 12:30 and 15:00. At 23.1 min an order a rider fits only 2 in 60 minutes, so the window needs 48 riders instead of 22.
- With the Kuwait rule, 145 orders fall between 11:00 and 16:00 and have to move to cars or to other hours.
How to read your results
- Peak to average above 2: one shift pattern cannot follow demand. Look at shorter or split shifts, or part-time riders for the peaks.
- Spare time above 25%: you pay for riders between peaks. Shorter shifts or a second start time usually cut it.
- Minutes per order: waiting at pickup and the ride back are often the parts you can change, not the distance.
- Riders to roster: the number to hire or contract is the rostered figure, not the riders on the road.
How to need fewer riders
- Cut the wait at pickup: dispatch the rider when the order is nearly ready, not when it is placed.
- Shorten the ride back: hold riders in the zone and give them the next pickup on the way.
- Batch where it is allowed: two orders to the same building or street share the ride out; check the rules above first.
- Match shifts to the curve: compare 8-hour shifts with 6-hour or split shifts in the Shifts tab.
- Know the cost: work out the cost per rider-hour and per order with the Delivery Cost per Order Calculator.
Assumptions and limits
The planner uses hourly averages. Orders inside an hour arrive in bursts, so a 100% busy share always leaves some orders waiting; that is why the target share is below 100%. Every rider has the same speed and trip, and an order is counted in the hour it is placed. The shift plan uses one shift length and does not schedule breaks, days off or legal limits on hours; add those from your labor law and contracts. Midday rules are described as reported on the dates shown; check the current text with the authority. All defaults are examples.