Smart route planning
Effective route planning requires effective support tools to make the routes as efficient and navigable as possible. In order to produce efficient routes, route planners must take many factors into consideration, so having an effective system to support them in their hectic day-to-day work is a must.
The system plans routes quickly and efficiently, resulting in lower driving costs and more deliveries per vehicle per day. The plan also serves as the basis for better and more precise communication with customers of the estimated delivery time, which reduces the amount of time they spend sitting around waiting for their delivery.
Basis for effective planning
The orders are grouped in different ways for optimisation purposes. The TMS solution will send over the data for how the routes are to be optimised, such as the time to be spent with each customer depending on what is to be picked up or delivered.
Normal optimisation solutions do not give this factor sufficient attention. Our solution calculates how much time will be spent with the customer depending on what is to be delivered, whether a crane or other equipment is to be used, how many lifts are to be performed, the type of refrigerator that is to be delivered, whether anything is to be installed, etc. The time spent with each customer has a huge impact on route planning.
Routes are planned on the basis of:
- Products and service, how much time is needed to load and unload
- Vehicles and staff, vehicle capacities, and their availability
- Customer opening hours, times when the customer is available to accept a delivery
- Order data from TransFleet or data imported via spreadsheets
- Geography and traffic information, historical data on traffic
- Warehouses and depots, where the goods are to be picked up and delivered
