Automatic dynamic demand shaping

Abstract

A method including facilitating display of a first user interface to a controller. The first user interface can include fields that allow the controller to specify customizable parameters for shaping demand. The acts also can include receiving the customizable parameters from the controller. The acts additionally can include generating a historic utilization ranking corresponding to pickup time slots. The acts further can include determining in real-time a respective current utilization of each respective time slot of the pickup time slots. The acts additionally can include assigning the each respective time slot to a respective usage tier of usage tiers based at least in part on (1) a respective rank of the historic utilization ranking for the each respective time slot, (2) the respective current utilization of the each respective time slot, and (3) the customizable parameters. The acts further can include facilitating display of a second user interface to a customer. The second user interface can include a listing of at least a portion of the pickup time slots and usage indicators associated with individual time slots of the portion of the pickup time slots. The usage indicators can be associated with the individual time slots based on the respective usage tier to which each of the individual time slots have been assigned. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.