Case Study: a Dubai-based Middle East super-app marketplace achieves more accurate ETAs and driver navigation with NextBillion.ai

Dubai-based Middle East Super-app Marketplace cuts API calls from 25x25 to 5,000x5,000 with NextBillion.ai

A Dubai-based super-app marketplace, powering on-demand delivery services across the Middle East, faced significant challenges with its in-house routing system. The system produced inaccurate ETAs because it could not account for real-world driver behavior, where couriers were incentivized to choose longer routes for higher pay. Additional pain points included a lack of real-time traffic data, no in-app navigation leading to a disconnect with third-party apps, and API constraints that hindered large-scale operations.

NextBillion.ai implemented its Distance Matrix API, Directions API, and Navigation SDK to address these issues. The solution provided behavior-aware routing that could predict the routes drivers were actually likely to take, integrated turn-by-turn navigation directly into the driver app, and supported massive-scale ETA calculations. This enabled the super-app to achieve precision ETAs, close the feedback loop between planned and actual routes, and reduce API-related costs.