Determining courier effort for deliveries

A system able to quantify predicted courier effort for a delivery job for determining courier payment in advance, the system comprising:

• a plurality of courier devices associated with a plurality of respective couriers, each courier device including a respective courier device processor, a respective courier device GPS receiver coupled to the respective courier device processor, and a respective courier device communication interface coupled to the respective courier device processor for communicating over the one or more networks, each courier device programmed to determine, based at least in part on information from its respective courier device GPS receiver, respective geographic locations of the courier device, and send indicated locations of the courier device over the one or more networks;
• and
• a service computing device including a service computing device processor, and a service computing device communication interface coupled to the service computing device processor for communicating over the one or more networks with the plurality of courier devices, the service computing device programmed to:
• receive, from the courier devices, over a period of time, respective indicated locations of the courier devices based at least in part on the respective geographic locations of the courier devices determined from the respective courier device GPS receivers;
• determine, based at least in part on the respective indicated locations of the courier devices received from the courier devices in association with a plurality of past orders, at least one of:
• wait times of the couriers at a plurality of merchant pickup locations, or
• handoff times of the couriers at a plurality of delivery locations;
• determine a first payment rate based on a distribution of courier travel times for the plurality of past orders, and a second payment rate based on a distribution of courier other time for the plurality of past orders, wherein the courier other time includes the at least one of the wait times or the handoff times;
• receive, from a buyer device, an order for delivery of an item from a first merchant to an indicated delivery location;
• determine, for a first courier associated with a first courier device of the plurality of courier devices, based at least in part on the location information, a first travel time to a pickup location associated with the merchant and a second travel time from the pickup location to the indicated delivery location;
• determine a first payment amount based on the first travel time, the second travel time, and the first payment rate;
• determine a predicted courier other time associated with the order, wherein the predicted courier other time is based at least in part on a predicted courier handoff time and at least one of:
• a courier wait time associated with the first merchant based at least in part on the plurality of past orders,
• a courier wait time associated with other merchants in a same merchant category as the first merchant, or
• a courier wait time associated with at least one of:
• a service region including the delivery location, or a plurality of service regions;
• determine a second payment amount based on the predicted courier other time associated with the order and the second payment rate;
• and
• send, to the first courier device, information about the order including a payment amount for the order, wherein the payment amount for the order is based on the first payment amount plus the second payment amount.