How to Plan an Optimized Route

Planning an optimized route should be a priority before sending a delivery driver on their way. Route optimization helps businesses with delivery and logistics operations to utilize their fleets at full capacity, cut operating costs, and improve driver efficiency. With Route4Me’s best route planning software in 2024, you need to follow several simple optimization steps:

 

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1. Implement Route Optimization Software

To plan an optimized route with multiple locations, you need to consider implementing route optimization software. Routing software will help you plan multi stop delivery routes in minutes without having to manually solve complex computational math problems such as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Vehicle Route Problem (VRP). With the Route4Me Route Planner, you can save hundreds of hours on route planning and spend more time on making more money.

Implement route planning and route optimization software for delivery drivers and delivery vehicles.

 

2. Import and Map Delivery Addresses

With route optimization software, you can choose locations on a map and use them as route stops, import files from your computer and phone or even from cloud storage, sync your CRM system with the route planner’s address book, copy-paste shipping addresses, and more. Adding addresses to the routing software solution can be as simple as drag and drop.

Import customer addresses and map customer locations to plan optimized delivery driver routes.

 

3. Select the Right Optimization Type

Select the preferred optimization type to split your delivery addresses into the most optimal number of optimized routes. See how many vehicles and drivers you actually need to complete all deliveries and field service visits on time.

Select the optimization type that suits your routing case and specify optimization constraints.

 

4. Set Up Routing Business Rules & Constraints

After uploading your customers’ routing data and delivery details, you need to customize the route optimization outcome by inputting constraints specific to your logistics operation. You can plan routes as per vehicle capacity, delivery time windows, maximum generated revenue per route, online order priority and customer type, etc.

Select the route optimization type and specify routing business rules as optimization constraints.

 

5. Get the Most Optimal Visitation Sequences

The next and last step in the route optimization process is the optimization itself. After setting up all your industry-specific routing parameters and business rules, you can finally view the most optimal sequence of shipping addresses to be serviced by your delivery drivers in the fastest and most cost-efficient way possible. Optimized routes will help you uncover the hidden costs of inactivity and discover savings opportunities.

Get optimized routes with most efficient driving directions and send drivers on delivery routes.

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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.