Behavioral Drivers of Routing Decisions: Evidence from Restaurant Table Assignment

We first theoretically identify the factors that may impact individuals’ routing decisions before empirically examining a large operational dataset in a casual restaurant setting. Analytical models have identified various routing algorithms for service operations management. Although each model may offer advantages over others, they all make a key assumption decision makers will actually follow the algorithms, if implemented. However, in many settings routing is not done by a computer that is programmed, but instead by a human. People make routing decisions at their own discretion which may hurt or help system performance. We analyze granular transaction data to examine how hosts revise a given routing rule when seating customers. After that, we empirically analyze the effect of the dispersion of table assignments on restaurant performance, and estimate the counter-factual sales impact of adopting