Abstract: Techniques for predicting a wait time for a shopper based on a location the shopper's client device are presented. A system identifies a shopper's current location and uses a machine learning model to predict a wait time until the shopper will receive one or more orders. The machine learning model is trained to use input features including a number of orders received during a current time period for fulfillment near the current location, a number of other shoppers available for fulfilling orders during the current time period near the current location, historical information about a presentation of a plurality of orders to a plurality of shoppers near the current location, and historical information about the shopper and the other nearby available shoppers. The system then sends the predicted wait time to the client device for presentation to the shopper.

Abstract: An online concierge system accesses and applies a model to predict likelihoods of acceptance of a service request for an order by pickers. The system accesses timespan distributions for accepted service requests and identifies sets of pickers based on the order. Based on the likelihoods and distributions, the system generates simulated responses of the sets of pickers to the service request and trains an additional model based on attributes of the order, the simulated responses, and information associated with corresponding sets of pickers. The system receives a new order, identifies additional sets of pickers based on the new order, and applies the additional model to predict responses of the additional sets of pickers to an additional service request for the new order. Based on the predicted responses and a delivery time associated with the new order, a minimum number of pickers to send the additional service request is determined.