Interview Questions/System Design/Ride-Sharing Service

Ride-Sharing Service

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Hard

Ride-Sharing Service

Design a ride-sharing service like Uber or Lyft. Functional Requirements: - Riders can request rides by specifying pickup and drop-off locations - Match riders with nearby available drivers - Real-time location tracking for both riders and drivers - Fare estimation before ride confirmation - Payment processing after ride completion - Rating system for riders and drivers Non-Functional Requirements: - Match rider to driver within 30 seconds - Real-time location updates every 3-5 seconds - Support for surge pricing during high demand - Handle millions of concurrent rides Scale: - 50M riders, 5M drivers - 15M rides per day - Need to match riders within a few-kilometer radius in real-time

Examples

Example 1

How would you implement ride pooling (shared rides with multiple passengers)?

Approach hint

Think about spatial data structures that let you query 'find all points within X km of this location' efficiently.

Common mistake

Skipping assumptions, edge cases, or trade-offs can make an otherwise good answer feel incomplete.

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