Drive Through Throughput Calculator

Work out drive through throughput instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Drive Through Throughput Calculator

Drive-through throughput is set by the slowest station, not by the total service time, because the stations operate in parallel on different cars. Cutting the bottleneck by five seconds adds meaningful capacity; cutting a non-bottleneck station adds none.

Formulas

Capacity

Cars per hour = 3,600 / Bottleneck station seconds

Peak utilisation

Utilisation % = Peak hour cars / Capacity x 100

Worked example

With the default values below, Drive Through Throughput Calculator returns Throughput capacity of 85.7. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Order point time per car: 42
Payment window time per car: 28
Collection window time per car: 36
Cars arriving in the peak hour: 95

Results

Throughput capacity: 85.7
Bottleneck station time: 42
Total service time per car: 106
Peak hour utilisation of capacity: 110.83%

Step by step

1Values used
2Capacity
3Peak utilisation
4Throughput capacity= 85.7
5Bottleneck station time= 42
6Total service time per car= 106
7Peak hour utilisation of capacity= 110.83

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why doesn't total service time set capacity?

Because while one car pays, another is ordering and a third is collecting. Total time affects each customer's experience, not the rate of flow.

What is the usual bottleneck?

Order taking at lunch peaks and collection when kitchen output lags. Which one binds shifts through the day.