The gap between “arrived” and “delivered”

Even when navigation says you have arrived, the driver is often just starting the real work. Navigation confirms the location is correct but drops them somewhere near a building, not at the final delivery location. They have to figure out if they’re on the correct floor, find the nearest staircase, and locate the actual door. That search frequently takes much longer than anyone realizes. This pattern plays out at unfamiliar addresses across the last mile every single day. The cumulative impact on an operation is massive.

Here is what we discovered at the second address in the Narmin Challenge: Overblaak 40, Rotterdam.

What navigation systems miss

The word arrived should mean you are at the door where the delivery takes place. With standard tools, it rarely does.

We ran an experiment with two experienced couriers, Max and Sander. Same starting location. Same navigation tools. Neither knew this part of Rotterdam.

Max took 12 minutes and 48 seconds to complete the delivery.Sander took 7 minutes and 32 seconds.

Not because Max lacked skill. Not because Sander was faster. Because Google Maps gave them incomplete information and dropped them at an underpass. It confirmed they had arrived without telling them the entrance was on the other side of the street, a floor above street level.

What 7:32 and 12:48 minutes look like in reality

Watch Sander check his phone before he's even started walking. The map says he's already at Overblaak 40. He looks around and starts to question himself.

"You told me we are at Overblaak 40, we need to go to Overblaak 40, right? Then my first problem is that it's telling me that we are already here. And even in the picture, I can see that we basically are at that point. So I now need to figure out where I need to go. I don't think my phone is going to help me this time. Unless it would be up here, which I would have no clue how to get to." - Sander

An experienced courier, immediately recognizing that his navigation has abandoned him. He can see what might be a balcony above, but his phone offers no guidance on whether that's correct or how to reach it.

He starts walking up and down the street, searching for house numbers. Zooms in on the map. While crossing the street, his eye catches the number 40 in the distance. He checks the map again to confirm he's heading in the right direction, and that's when he sees it: Overblaak 40 is one of the cube houses on an elevated platform, not at street level.

Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds to figure out what his navigation should have told him.

Max hit the exact same wall. Standard navigation dropped him at the same underpass. He looks around. The pin shows he's “arrived” at the destination.

He starts walking in one direction to search for house numbers. Pure trial and error. Checks his map. Walks back. Checks again. The pin keeps insisting he's in the right place, but there's no entrance, no house numbers. Nothing that confirms he’s in the right place to deliver the package. In the end, Max finds house number 40 by “pure coincidence”.

"Pure mental power. We got there in the end, but it took a while." - Max

Twelve minutes and forty-eight seconds to solve what should have been a straightforward delivery. Sander solved the same puzzle in 7 minutes and 32 seconds.

That five-minute gap between two professionals using the same tools shows exactly what happens when drivers improvise. When they are forced to use alternative methods, such as Sander’s phone with Google Maps, and Max’s intuition to “trust his gut”.

In the end, both drivers delivered successfully. And both wasted time on a problem that shouldn't exist.

What this means at scale

The real problem is not a single delivery. It is the pattern. If we conservatively say that 10% of stops involve complex addresses, the math changes everything.

• Capacity: Operations plan routes for 50 stops when drivers could handle 55 or 60 with accurate navigation. The gap is hidden in these accumulated search minutes.
• Driver experience: This friction compounds. Circling the same spot multiple times while your phone insists you're already there leads to frustration and burnout.
• Customer satisfaction: Better navigation means more reliable delivery windows and fewer failed attempts.
• Operational performance: When 10% of stops no longer waste 7 to 13 minutes, the entire system performs differently.

What drivers already know

After the delivery, we asked Max and Sander what would've helped.

Max: "I think I could do better, had I been given some direction."

Sander explained the core problem: "The phone told me that I was basically already there, which confused me because there are no apartments right at this spot. But even the picture that Google Maps gave me was right here."

His solution? "Someone telling me that it's above here, and nothing was clear about that."

He also knew exactly where future drivers should park: "Your best pick is to park across the street. That way, I can just run across, run up the stairs and be at the address immediately."

But Sander also points out something critical. Even with perfect navigation, the industry standard of approximately two minutes per stop is already tight.

"But then your customer still has to receive the package. Sometimes they have to sign something, and that will all delay that time by two minutes. So no, in the end, it's probably not something you can make.”

The customer interaction alone can consume additional time. When you add 7 to 13 minutes of searching for the entrance on top of that, the entire route timeline collapses.

Drivers already know what works. They face this problem dozens of times a day. The question is whether operations are capturing that knowledge.

2:06 vs 12:48 minutes

Narmin's Address Intelligence Platform captures delivery knowledge down to the last meter.

For Overblaak 40, that means:

• Not getting dropped off at an underpass across the street.
• Parking at the most logical access point.
• Walking the shortest path to the door.

The platform captures what the first driver figured out, so every driver after benefits from it. With Address Intelligence, the "Arrived" pin moves from an underpass to the handle of the door.

Not 12:48 minutes, but just 2:06.