Max Route Distance – Route Optimization Constraint
With Route4Me’s Max Route Distance Add-On, you are able to define the maximum distance that each of your planned routes should not exceed. Thus, you can effortlessly plan and optimize efficiently sequenced and equally-sized routes with multiple destinations, ensuring that the workload inside your team is properly distributed. For example, you know that your drivers can get fatigued after driving for a particular number of miles, the fuel tanks on your fleet vehicles may have limited capacity that you don’t want to be exceeded to avoid refueling, or you just want to plan routes that have equal distance so that some team members don’t get more workload than others. Then, if the distance of the planned route(s) exceeds the preferred number of miles, one or multiple new routes will be automatically created by the system. Moreover, you can also use Cubic Volume, Weight, Pieces (number of items), Priority, and Revenue constraints to get even more control over your routes and make sure that your team is functioning as efficiently and safely as possible.
To plan routes with the Max Route Distance constraint, first, go to Plan New Route from the navigation menu.
Next, select one of the preferred route data import methods (Interactive Map Editor, Copy-and-Paste, Upload a File, Import Data, or Upload Scan(s)).
After that, adjust the following route optimization settings:
- Go to the Optimization tab;
- Select Multiple Drivers Route optimization type so that the system can automatically plan and optimize more than one route if needed;
- Choose where to end the route(s) after the last stop is visited and serviced.
Next, use the corresponding fields for defining the maximum number of routes that can be created from the imported addresses and the maximum time duration (DD:HH:MM) for each created route.
NOTE: The Maximum Number of Routes/Vehicles and Maximum Route Duration route optimization constraints, as well as the Multiple Drivers Route optimization type can be enabled through the Feature Manager as components of the Route Optimization for Multiple Drivers with No Advanced Constraints module.
Then, in the Maximum Distance per Vehicle or Route field, define the distance that should not be exceeded in the planned routes.
Next, review the imported addresses and then click on the Finish Import button to plan the route(s).
Depending on the Maximum Number of Routes/Vehicles, Maximum Route Duration, and Maximum Distance per Vehicle or Route settings, the system automatically plans the corresponding number of equally-sized and efficiently optimized routes. If multiple routes are planned, then they are automatically opened in the Routes Map. When the system plans multiple routes, each route is suffixed with its corresponding progression Part number next to the original name of the route.
Once you planned one or multiple routes, you can start assigning users and vehicles to them. To do so, click on the gear icon next to a particular route and then select the preferred option from the list. Learn more about all methods of assigning users and vehicles to your routes.
When the applied optimization constraints are exceeded, the system may automatically plan one or multiple Unrouted Destinations routes. The Unrouted Destinations routes contain the stops that did not fit into the planned routes due to the exceeded optimization constraints. When you have one or multiple Unrouted Destinations routes, you can use the timeline in the Routes Map for moving stops between different routes.
To move a stop from one route to another using the timeline, click and hold on a particular stop from one route and then drag it to the preferred sequence position on another route. Thus, whenever you have stops that did not fit into planned routes due to the exceeded optimization constraints, you can always manually distribute them to different routes in a fast and effortless manner.
