Driver Skills And Vehicle Attributes With Mixed Fleet Route Optimization

Not all customers have the same delivery, pickup, or service requirements. Suppose you have a team of drivers with different skill sets and more than a hundred customers with different requirements. That’s billions of possible routing scenarios. Route4Me’s Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes allow you to optimize hundreds of thousands of addresses with different required skills and attributes in seconds. Route4Me automatically matches the Driver Skills of your field employees and the Vehicle Attributes of your fleet vehicles to each location’s required skills and attributes. You can ensure that people with the correct skills always visit the correct customers. Furthermore, you can pair Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes with Mixed Fleet Routing to solve even the most complex routing scenarios in seconds and maximize the capacity of your vehicles.

Route4Me automatically matches the skills specified in your driver profiles to those required to service each location and outputs an optimal number of routed destinations.

 

 

Driver Skills With Vehicle Attributes Route Optimization Overview

Follow these steps to optimize routes with Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes. Learn in more detail further in this guide.

  1. Add custom Vehicle Attributes to your Vehicles.
  2. Add custom Driver Skills to your Drivers and assign a Vehicle to each Driver.
  3. You can use Mixed Fleet Route Optimization by assigning custom Capacity Profiles to your Vehicles (optional).
  4. Add Required Vehicle Attributes and Required Driver Skills to addresses in your address spreadsheet.
  5. Upload your spreadsheet and select the preferred Optimization Profile or adjust route settings manually.
  6. Route4Me will match Vehicle Attributes and Driver Skills to those required at each imported address. Then, Route4Me will distribute destinations, optimize the best number of routes, dispatch routes, and assign the correct Drivers and Vehicles to the correct routes.

 

Driver Skills With Vehicle Attributes Route Planning And Optimization

With Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes, the correct Drivers and Vehicles are matched to the correct routes. When you add custom Vehicle Attributes, your vehicles can be matched to route destinations that require the corresponding attributes. The Driver’s skills and the Vehicle’s attributes must both match the required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes of the address. Additionally, you can manually assign a matching Vehicle to a Driver. When planning and optimizing routes with Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes, Route4Me first checks the assigned Vehicle of each driver. If the assigned Vehicle doesn’t have the correct attributes, Route4Me assigns a more suitable Vehicle to the Driver and the route.

 

Add Custom Vehicle Attributes Or Vehicle Tags To Your Route4Me Fleet

Specifically, to add custom Vehicle Attributes, go to “Team” and then “Vehicles” from the Navigation Menu. On the Vehicles List, click the Pencil Icon to open the Edit Vehicle screen. Additionally, learn more about managing vehicles.

To add Custom Attributes to your vehicles, open the Vehicles List and click the Pencil Icon to open the Edit Vehicle screen.

 

Then, on the “Edit Vehicle” screen, click the “Vehicle Attributes” field and enter your preferred custom attributes. These attributes will be matched to the required attributes of route addresses. When the Vehicle Attributes match the required address attributes, the Vehicle can be automatically assigned to the respective address. Click the “Save Vehicle” button to add the specified attributes.

Enter your preferred custom attributes. These attributes will be matched to the respective attributes of route addresses. When the Vehicle Attributes match the address attributes, the Vehicle can be automatically assigned to the respective address.

 

Add Custom Driver Skills Or Driver Tags to Your Route4Me Drivers

To add Driver Skills to a Driver, go to “Team” and then “Users” from the Navigation Menu. Then, click the Three-dot Icon next to the preferred Driver and select “Edit” from the menu. NOTE: You can only add Driver Skills to the “Driver” user type. Set this user type for field employees you want to add skills to. Additionally, learn more about Route4Me’s User Types and Team Hierarchy.

To add Driver Skills to a Driver, go to "Team" and then "Users" from the Navigation Menu. Then, click the Three-dot Icon next to the preferred Driver and select "Edit" from the menu.

 

Then, on the “Edit User” screen, select the “Driver Skills” tab. Next, click the “Driver Skills” field and enter your preferred custom skills. These Driver Skills will be matched to the required skills of addresses.

Furthermore, click the “Assigned Vehicle” field and select or search for a Vehicle to assign to the Driver. When selecting an assigned vehicle, pick one that matches the Driver and routing scenario. Route4Me will check if the assigned Vehicle has the correct attributes to be assigned to the same addresses as the Driver when planning routes. If the vehicle’s attributes don’t match the required attributes, Route4Me will assign the most optimal vehicle from your fleet instead. This ensures that your Drivers and Vehicles can most optimally meet the requirements of your customers and helps you avoid the unbelievable complexity of manually comparing Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes to the requirements of every single destination when planning routes.

Click the "Assigned Vehicle" field and select or search for a preferred Vehicle to assign to the Driver. When planning routes, Route4Me checks if the assigned vehicle has the correct attributes to be assigned to the same address as the Driver.

 

Depending on your business and routing needs, you may want to match some or all Driver Skills to the required skills of addresses. To configure your Skills Matching Type, use Route4Me’s Advanced Configuration Editor to enable the following configurations. NOTE: The “SKILLS_MATCH_TYPE” Key is the variable that is modified by the value. Only one value may be active.

KeyValueDescription
SKILLS_MATCH_TYPEMATCH_ANYFor a Driver to be matched with an address, the address must require any of the field employee’s Driver Skills. For example, if the Driver has Skill 01, Skill 02, Skill 03, Skill 04, and the address requires Skill 1 and Skill 02, then this Driver can be assigned to the given address.
SKILLS_MATCH_TYPEMATCH_ALLFor a Driver to be matched with an address, the address must require all of the field employee’s Driver Skills. For example, if the driver has Skill 01, Skill 02, Skill 03, Skill 04, then this driver can only be assigned to addresses that require the Skill 01, Skill 02, Skill 03, Skill 04 Driver Skills.

Configure your preferred Skills Matching Type with the Advanced Configuration Editor.

 

Format Spreadsheet With Address, Driver Skills And Vehicle Attributes

To plan routes with required skills and attributes per destination, add the respective requirements to your route import spreadsheet. In the “Required_Skills” column, you can define both the Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes required at each destination, separated by commas. Additionally, learn more about Route4Me’s spreadsheet requirements.

Add required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes to route import spreadsheets.

 

Optimize Routes With Required Driver Skills And Vehicle Attributes

Then, to plan one or multiple routes with your preferred Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes requirements, go to “Routes” and then “Plan New Route” from the Navigation Menu. After that, select “Upload a File” or “Import Data”.

Plan routes by uploading a CSV route spreadsheet or import a route data spreadsheet from the cloud.

 

Next, select an Optimization Profile or click the “Skip” button to manually configure optimization settings.

Select Optimization Profiles or click the "Skip" button to manually adjust optimization settings.

 

Once you upload or import your route data spreadsheet, Route4Me processes the imported data and displays it in the “Importing Addresses into Route” window. To process the data automatically, select the Auto (attempt detection) option respectively. Alternatively, you can manually match column titles to the data contained in the corresponding columns. Verify that your data has been imported correctly and click the Continue to Review button.

Verify your imported addresses with required skills custom data before validating addresses.

 

After validating your addresses, the system checks which Driver and Vehicle best match the required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes of each destination. Then, the optimal distribution is calculated, and the software plans the most optimal number of routes based on your optimization settings. The required skills and attributes of each address are matched to the optimal Driver and Vehicle. Then, destinations are distributed into the most optimal sequence and number of routes.

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To view the required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes of a destination, open the corresponding route in the Route Editor. Click the preferred destination to open the “Destination Info” panel. Required skills and attributes are displayed in the “Custom Data” section of the Destination Info. In the example below, the selected destination was included into a route with its respective requirements and has the correct Driver and Vehicle, that have the matching skills and attributes, assigned to the route.

To view the required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes of a route destination, open the corresponding route in the Route Editor.

 

Mixed Fleet Route Optimization With Driver Skills And Vehicle Attributes

Furthermore, you can optimize routes with unbelievable complexity by adding a Mixed Vehicle Fleet with varying vehicle capacities into the mix. In addition to optimizing the distribution of destinations with required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes, you can also maximize your fleet vehicle capacity. When planning mixed fleet routes with required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes, Route4Me calculates the capacity of each vehicle to add as many addresses as possible. The system automatically accounts for the required skills and attributes while maximizing the capacity of your fleet. This helps you avoid the monumental task of going through billions of possible combinations. Additionally, learn more about Mixed Capacity Fleet routing.

 

Set Up Mixed Fleet Optimization Profiles

Specifically, to add Capacity Profiles, go to “Team” and then “Vehicles” from the Navigation Menu. On the Vehicles List, click the Pencil Icon next to the preferred Vehicle.

To add Capacity Profiles, go to "Team" and then "Vehicles" from the Navigation Menu. On the Vehicles List, click the Pencil Icon next to the preferred Vehicle.

 

Then, on the “Edit Vehicle” screen, in the “Vehicle Profile” section, select a Capacity Profile or click “Manage Capacity Profiles” to create one. Capacity Profiles enable you to create Vehicle capacity templates that define the maximum volume, weight, number of pieces, or revenue that a Vehicle can carry. Further, you can set your preferred Vehicle Attributes in the “Edit Vehicle” screen. Additionally, learn more about Capacity Profiles.

Capacity Profiles enable you to create Vehicle capacity templates that define the maximum volume, weight, number of pieces, or revenue that a Vehicle can carry.

 

Furthermore, make sure to assign the Vehicle with the preferred profile to a corresponding Driver with the appropriate skills. Click the “Assigned Vehicle” field and select or search for the preferred vehicle. Then, click the “Save” button.

Make sure to assign the Vehicle with the preferred profile to a corresponding Driver with the appropriate skills.

 

Optimize Mixed Fleet Routes With Driver Skills And Vehicle Attributes

Then, to plan one or multiple mixed fleet routes with your preferred requirements, go to “Routes” and then “Plan New Route” from the Navigation Menu. After that, select “Upload a File” or “Import Data”.

Plan routes by uploading a CSV route spreadsheet or import a route data spreadsheet from the cloud.

 

Next, select an Optimization Profile or click the “Skip” button to manually configure optimization settings.

Select an Optimization Profile or click the "Skip" button to manually configure optimization settings.

 

When creating or editing an existing Optimization Profile, go to the “Optimization” tab. Then, check the “Use vehicles with various capacity profiles” box to enable mixed fleet routing. Moreover, you can click the “Manage Vehicles” and “Manage Capacity Profiles” buttons to access the respective options. Additionally, learn more about using Optimization Profiles.

When creating or editing an existing Optimization Profile, go to the "Optimization" tab. Then, check the "Use vehicles with various capacity profiles" box to enable mixed fleet routing.

 

When adjusting optimization settings manually, go to the “Optimization” tab and select “Multiple Drivers” in the “Optimization” section. Then, in the “Mixed Vehicles Fleet” section, check the box next to “Enable Mixed Vehicles Fleet“. Select the preferred Vehicles with their respective Capacity Profiles and click the “Create Route and Proceed to Add Addresses” button.

To enable mixed fleet routing, check the box next to "Enable Mixed Vehicles Fleet".

 

Once you upload or import your route data spreadsheet, Route4Me processes the imported data and displays it in the “Importing Addresses into Route” window. To process the data automatically, select the Auto (attempt detection) option respectively. Alternatively, you can manually match column titles to the data contained in the corresponding columns. Verify that your data was imported correctly and click the Continue to Review button.

Verify that your routes spreadsheet has been properly imported with the corresponding route data columns and headers.

 

Then, the software plans the most optimal number of routes based on your optimization settings. Route4Me matches the required skills and attributes of addresses to the corresponding Drivers and Vehicles and distributes destinations into the most optimal sequence and number of routes. Furthermore, each vehicle’s capacity is maximized, and vehicles are assigned to the most efficient routes that maximally utilize their capacity.

Each vehicle's capacity is maximized, and vehicles are assigned to the most efficient routes that maximally utilize their capacity.

 

To view the Custom Data of a destination, open the route in the Route Editor. This includes its Driver Skill and Vehicle Attribute requirements. Click a destination to open its “Destination Info” panel. You can see the required Driver Skills and Vehicle Attributes in the “Custom Data” section. Also, you can view the assigned Driver and Vehicle of the selected route in the top right.

Open a route in the Route Editor to view the Custom Data of a destination. This includes the Driver Skill and Vehicle Attribute requirements.

 

 

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About Route4Me

Route4Me has over 40,000 customers globally. Route4Me's Android and iPhone mobile apps have been downloaded over 2 million times since 2009. Extremely easy-to-use, Route4Me's apps create optimized routes, synchronize routes to mobile devices, enable communication with drivers and customers, offer turn-by-turn directions, delivery confirmation, and more. Behind the scenes, Route4Me's operational optimization platform combines high-performance algorithms with data science, machine learning, and big data to plan, optimize, and analyze routes of almost any size in real-time.