What is ETA (estimated time of arrival)?
The predicted time a driver will reach a stop, computed from their live position, the remaining route and current traffic — and recalculated as the day changes.
An ETA computed in the morning is a guess by noon. The useful kind is live: it starts from where the driver actually is, accounts for the stops still ahead and the traffic between them, and updates as each stop completes. That is what lets a customer open a tracking page and see a real arrival time, and what lets dispatch see that an order is about to miss its window while there is still time to act.
Two things make ETAs honest: automatic arrival detection, so the timeline knows when each stop really happened, and recalculation on movement rather than on a schedule.
In PrivateMile: ETAs are traffic-aware and recalculate as drivers move, arrival is detected by geofence, and an order predicted to miss its window raises a late flag on the board before the customer notices.