The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2024–2025
HungerStation's Shaded Route steers delivery riders through the shade
HungerStation added an AI Shaded Route mode that maps the sun and the city's shade in real time, cooling rides by up to 15°C — retention up 20%.
HungerStation · VML Riyadh
What it had to solve
Saudi summers push daytime temperatures above 50°C, so people order food delivery instead of going out — but the riders who deliver in that heat were exposed to it, and many avoided midday shifts. HungerStation wanted to support and retain riders through the hottest hours without compromising delivery speed.
How it works
In Saudi Arabia's desert climate, summer temperatures often exceed 50°C, which pushes people indoors and makes them depend on food delivery at midday. The riders who make those deliveries worked in that heat, many avoided the worst shifts, and delivery brands struggled to keep them through the summer.
HungerStation and VML Riyadh launched The Shaded Route in September 2024, one of the hottest months of the Saudi year. The feature, integrated into the HungerStation app, tracks the sun's position in real time and analyzes the city's urban landscape — buildings, trees, bridges, tunnels and even cloud coverage — to construct delivery routes with the most shade, reducing real-feel temperatures by 10 to 15°C.
The system only suggests routes within 10 percent of the fastest delivery time, so rider comfort did not come at the cost of speed, and it learns continuously from LiDAR shadow data captured by riders' phones. HungerStation reported rider applications up 8 percent, retention up 20 percent, satisfaction up 15 percent and midday peak deliveries up 20 percent, and the route planner soon expanded beyond Riyadh to other Saudi cities.
Why it lands
- The idea solved a real operational bottleneck — riders avoiding midday heat slowed peak-hour deliveries — instead of only telling a brand story.
- Because shade makes the air feel 10 to 15°C cooler, routing was a measurable way to improve rider comfort and food freshness at once.
- Keeping shaded routes within 10 percent of the fastest time removed the tradeoff that usually blocks safety features in delivery.
- Treating rider welfare as a product feature, not a gesture, made the benefit permanent and self-improving.
What it did
HungerStation reported rider applications up 8 percent, retention up 20 percent, satisfaction up 15 percent and peak-time (12–4 pm) deliveries up 20 percent, with about 3,000 riders using the mode daily and roughly 114,000 kilometers ridden in shade each day.
What you can take
Fix the pain of the person doing the work inside the product itself: when the delivery route respects the rider's body, recruiting, retention and even peak-hour speed all improve.
Since then
The Shaded Route became a permanent part of HungerStation's app and spread from Riyadh to other Saudi cities, drawing international coverage and industry awards including a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2025 in Creative Data and a London International Awards 2025 Bronze for creative use of real-time data. Rival and adjacent brands began discussing human-focused delivery solutions, and HungerStation framed the feature as proof that prioritizing riders was both right and good for operations.
Sources
- The Shaded Route (case study)
- HungerStation Beats Desert Heat with AI-Powered 'Shaded Route' for Delivery Riders
- LIA 2025 Bronze — Creative Use of Data, Real-Time Data: The Shaded Route
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