Route Balancing – Balanced Route Optimization with Stop Distribution

Businesses’ bottom line suffers when employees have too little work, and employee performance can drop when they get too overloaded with work. Thus, in addition to planning routes with the most optimal directions, you also need to figure out the most efficient route stops distribution.

Route4Me’s Route Balancing enables you to evenly distribute the workload between your drivers and team members. All you need to do is import your addresses, select the number of routes you want to plan, and then select how you want to distribute the workload. After that, Route4Me will automatically compute and plan the specified number of routes with an equally distributed number of route stops.

Furthermore, you can then dispatch your balanced routes to drivers’ mobile apps in real-time.

Plan a New Route on Route4Me Route Planner

To plan routes using the Route Balancing constraint, import your route destinations and specify the preferred optimization settings. First, go to “Plan New Route” from the navigation menu and then select one of the preferred route data import options: Interactive Map Editor, Copy-and-Paste, Upload a File, or Import Data. Learn more about Route4Me’s spreadsheet requirements.

Minimize the Number of Routes or Vehicles

Next, go to the “Optimization” route settings tab and then select the “Multiple Drivers Optimization” route optimization type. After that, select whether you want to use the stop distribution for a specific number of routes or plan a minimal number of routes.

To plan a minimal optimal number of routes, in the “Stop Distribution” section, select the “Minimize Number of Routes/Vehicles” option. Next, add the preferred Routing Business Rules, such as Maximum Cubic Volume, Weight, Pieces, Revenue, etc. After that, schedule the routes and specify the rest of the route parameters.

Further, Route4Me will plan the minimal and most optimal number of routes based on the specified routing constraints. Accordingly, Route4Me accounts for such rules and constraints as Time Windows, Service Times, vehicle capacity, and many more. Therefore, you can use the “Minimize Number of Routes/Vehicles” optimization when you want to split all imported addresses into as few routes as possible.

Equally important, when planning a minimal number of routes, the system may output routes with noticeable differences in route distances, travel times, and the number of stops.

Balanced Route Optimization with Stops Distribution

Route4Me’s Balanced Route Optimization enables you to specify the exact number of routes you want to plan and how you want to distribute route stops within the planned routes. Specifically, the system can plan the specified number of routes with an equal or almost equal number of stops within each route.

Route Stops Distribution Based on Number of Stops

The route stops distribution based on the number of stops enables you to plan a specific number of routes with an almost equal number of stops per planned route.

First, select the “Based on Number of Stops” stop distribution option. Next, specify the exact number of routes to be planned in the “Maximum Number of Routes/Vehicles” field. Additionally, specify other constraints based on your routing needs.

Accordingly, Route4Me will plan the specified number of routes with an equal or almost equal number of stops on each route. Notably, routes with the exact same or almost equal number of stops can have significantly different distances and total drive time. The reason for this is that route stops can have different time windows, service times, different distances from one stop to another, etc.

Dispatch Balanced Routes to Drivers’ Mobile Apps

Furthermore, you can dispatch the created balanced routes to drivers and field employees in real-time. To do so, assign drivers or other users to your planned and optimized balanced routes. Once dispatched, the respective balanced routes will instantly become available on the drivers’ mobile apps. After that, they can use Route4Me’s Mobile routing apps to navigate routes, track route progress, and much more.

• Android Route Planner app – download and install the app on your smartphone or tablet.
• iOS Route Planner app – download and install the app on your iPhone or iPad.

Additionally, learn more about how to dispatch routes from the Web Platform to Route4Me’s mobile apps.

Troubleshooting Unrouted Destinations

When planning routes with optimization constraints, you may get Unrouted Destinations. Unrouted destinations are the addresses that couldn’t fit into planned routes due to the specified optimization constraints and route parameters. For example, if the number of specified vehicles doesn’t have the needed capacity, there are too many locations, etc.

To troubleshoot unrouted destinations, use one of the following options:

• First, you can re-upload your addresses and specify the new optimizations settings that will allow fitting all addresses.
• Second, you can use the Route Maps Timeline to insert unrouted destinations into planned routes. To do so, drag unrouted destinations and drop them on the preferred routes.