What Is Route Planning in 2024? Trends and Best Software

Route planning is the process of mapping multiple locations and sequencing multiple addresses in the most optimal order for delivering goods or making field service visits. Additionally, route mapping can entail route optimization, fleet management, route scheduling, route management, route tracking, driver management, and other components.

Furthermore, planning routes can include hundreds of business rules, customer variables, team and vehicle constraints, etc. For instance, with Route4Me’s enterprise route optimizer, you can plan routes that account for delivery windows, driver skills, vehicle loading capacity, and more! Moreover, the Route4Me dynamic routing software enables you to create pickup and delivery routes, service routes, field sales routes, maintenance routes, and many more.

Route planning consists of taking a set of locations or addresses and sequencing them in a specific order to create a route that you can navigate. Additionally, the best route planners allow you to produce a travel itinerary, driving directions, route instructions, mandatory driver tasks, etc.

For example, Route4Me’s map route planner enables you to import hundreds of thousands of addresses, geocode and display them on the optimized map. Next, you can drag and drop addresses on the map and connect validated addresses in the preferred custom order to create routes. Additionally, our trip planner also enables you to schedule delivery routes, manage routes in real-time, and more.

The route planning problem is the process of figuring out the most optimal way to route multiple locations accounting for routing variables and constraints. Additionally, the routing problem is often associated with solving the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) – two logistics problems of utmost complexity. Equally important, this routing equation is often referred to as the route optimization problem.

Accordingly, as the number of route stops increases, the difficulty of manually solving the routing problem goes beyond humans’ calculation capacity. Additionally, adding even a single customer variable or routing rule can add millions of possible routing scenarios. Such variables can include vehicle carrying capacity, customer time windows, fleet size, driver qualifications, and many more.

Therefore, when creating a route with 10 stops, Route4Me’s proprietary route optimization algorithms compute through all possible routing scenarios to plan the best route possible.

The many route planning types can be split into two main categories: Dynamic Routing and Static or Recurring Routing. So, on the one hand, there is dynamic routing that enables professionals to plan new routes with different destinations every day. Moreover, the created dynamic routes can always be adjusted and re-routed in real-time. This gives logistics businesses the ability to adapt to any last-minute change instantly. On the other hand, there is recurring routing. This type of routing requires planning the same route with the same addresses with a specific daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly delivery schedule.

Furthermore, under these two categories fall many other routing types or variations that can be customized depending on your business requirements and unique operating needs. For instance, with Route4Me’s routing software, you can use route planning by postcode, routing for truck drivers, delivery routing, pickup routing, or even route planning for electric vehicles. And the list goes on.

Most route planning companies simply put whatever they are offering in front of or after this word combination (i.e., sales trip planning, local delivery routing, etc.).

Multi-stop route planning is the process of mapping multiple addresses or routing multiple locations to create a route. Basically, there is no difference between regular and multi-stop route planning. Therefore, multi-stop routing is based on the same rules and algorithms, involving multiple mathematical processes.

Multi-stop route optimization is usually leveraged by last-mile carriers, field sales, field marketing, field service, and other field-oriented businesses. Further in this article, you can learn more about various online route planner tools and software for routing multiple locations.

Route planning is important for last mile businesses as it helps carriers and logistics-intense organizations to save money on fleet and logistics expenses while making money on more profitable service and delivery routes. Various business types and last mile carriers use it to make the most use out of their vehicles and drivers, make more deliveries or pickups in a single route, etc. Furthermore, properly optimized routes reduce driving time and mileage allowance, lower fuel expenses, and even raise customer satisfaction with on-time deliveries.

Basically, the more organized and optimal your routes are, the more money you can make. For example, Route4Me’s patented routing technologies help last-mile businesses achieve a 300% increase in the efficiency of various routing and logistics activities without additional drivers, vehicles, or any other assets. This translates directly into only improving your supply chain and last-mile operation but also improving your bottom line.

The benefits of route planning enable last mile businesses to increase revenue and delivery profitability, raise fleet productivity and team performance, and even improve customer service. For example, with Route4Me’s route optimization software, you can get the following benefits:

• Transportation Costs: Short routes and improved vehicle management enable you to lower vehicle maintenance expenses, mileage allowance, etc. Additionally, with shorter driving times, you can also cut fuel costs.
• Team Productivity and Fleet Performance: Organized and balanced routes improve driver management and workload distribution. Furthermore, completing more deliveries or visits in fewer routes allows you to improve fleet management and maximize fleet efficiency.
• Customer Satisfaction: Optimally sequenced routes mean faster deliveries, quicker customer response times, and better customer service. Additionally, a positive customer experience will lead to better customer retention. For example, according to Supply Chain Management, 96% of consumers would return to a retailer again if they had a positive delivery experience.
• CO2 Emissions and Carbon Footprint: Routes with shorter distances and travel times mean that your vehicles consume less fuel and have lower CO2 emissions. Thus, by reducing your fleet’s carbon dioxide emissions and your overall environmental footprint, you can easily comply with environmental laws and make your last mile operations greener.

The goal of logistics route planning is to optimize the last mile – the most expensive component of any supply chain. In fact, the last mile is the most expensive logistics operation as it accounts for 41% of the total supply chain costs. Thus, optimized routes in transportation and logistics intense environments enable any business that delivers goods or services to cut delivery costs for transporting goods to end customers.

Moreover, the importance of route optimization in logistics is not limited only to cutting last mile expenses. Mainly, logistics professionals use routing software to optimize warehouse routes, plan efficient middle mile routes, automate reverse logistics planning, and more. Oftentimes, industry professionals look for the opportunity to manage and track their fleets and drivers from a single platform, such as Route4Me. With Route4Me’s route optimization software, businesses get an in-depth understanding of their entire logistics operation.

Route planning in navigation is the process of finding the best route or the most optimal driving, bicycling, and walking directions to visit multiple locations or addresses. Furthermore, navigating planned routes is an integral component of optimizing the last mile. To plan a navigation route, you can use various navigation apps like Google Maps or more commercial last mile software like Route4Me.

In detail, when using routeplanning software, you can map the shortest and fastest route for multiple locations. And to ensure drivers are getting the most optimal driving directions to follow the planned routes, businesses need capable driver apps that are compatible with the routing software of choice.

For example, Route4Me’s voice-guided navigation analyzes all the roads, highways, motorways, intersections, traffic incidents, and other real-time road conditions found along a planned route. After that, the Android Route Planner and iOS Route Planner apps output turn-by-turn driving directions, bicycling directions, and walking directions. Moreover, our route navigation optimization apps enable drivers to either use the in-app voice-guided GPS navigation feature or resort to third-party apps. Specifically, users can navigate Route4Me routes using navigation apps such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, CoPilot, etc.

Route planning in sales is the process of mapping multiple customers and optimizing visitation routes for field sales representatives. The goal of sales route planning is to help field salespeople visit and sell to as many clients on one route as possible. To achieve this, field sales businesses often combine planning routes with route optimization and territory mapping.

Sales territory management allows you to create optimal service areas and sales territories with customer addresses. Thus, you can evenly distribute the workload among the right sales reps with suitable professional expertise and skills. Then, you can use sales route optimization to automatically sequence customers’ addresses in the most time-effective visitation order.

Therefore, it’s recommended that you use your customer relationship management service or system in combination with route planning for multiple stops software. For instance, Route4Me’s route optimizer software supports integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud. Thus, you can easily import Salesforce customers into the route planner, create sales territories, and plan sales routes with customer addresses.

Route planning software is a tool that helps logistics intense businesses map customer addresses and plan cost-efficient multi stop routes. In detail, route planner software computes the most optimal route with a set of locations and generates optimal driving directions or walking directions for visiting each address. Accordingly, as opposed to pen and paper routing or planning routes in Excel spreadsheets, routing software can plan routes fully automatically.

For instance, with Route4Me’s route planning software, trip planners can plan routes for optimizing first mile, middle mile, and last mile logistics and routing operations with just a click of a button. Moreover, our route planning software also allows you to manage and organize routes, create delivery schedules, collect electronic proof of delivery, track logistics KPIs and delivery metrics, and much more.

Route planning software involves four main steps, including address import, location mapping, route creation and route mapping, as well as online or offline navigation. For example, with Route4Me’s routing solutions, you can effortlessly map a route by following these 4 easy steps:

1. Import addresses and locations from your CRM or client management system into the route planner.
2. Automatically map imported locations and customers on the route map.
3. Specify business rules, delivery schedule, routing settings, etc.
4. Get routes with optimal map directions and navigation instructions to complete order deliveries or pickups.

The best route planning software should be able to account for an organization’s unique last-mile needs. And since every business has its particularities and individual logistics requirements, finding a route planning software solution to be a “one-size-fits-all” can be difficult.

So, the ideal delivery software should feature multiple flexible tools to cater to the needs of different logistics intense and field-oriented industries. For example, Route4Me’s Route Planner offers advanced features for delivery, field sales, field marketing, field service, landscaping, pool cleaning, surveying, technicians, and virtually any business that needs to visit more than 10 addresses a day. Moreover, Route4Me’s route sequencing and optimization software helps over 32,000 small businesses and enterprises to win the last mile and has over 2 million downloads. This makes Route4Me the world’s most used route planning software in 2024.

Read more about the most popular route optimization software solutions in 2024.

The route planning components include various planning, scheduling, management, and reporting activities that can vary depending on the specific organization. Being the most used route optimization software in the world, Route4Me has outlined the following components of the planning process for most last-mile businesses:

• Address geocoding and location validation
• Route mapping and route directions
• Delivery and service scheduling
• Driver dispatch and vehicle dispatch
• Driver and fleet management
• Mobile workforce communication and management
• Historic and real-time route tracking
• Route reporting and route audit

Also, depending on your specific business type and routing needs, your process for planning and optimizing routes may include additional components.

The best free mobile route planning apps include Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, etc. These routing apps allow you to easily navigate from one point to another using a user-friendly navigation map.

However, neither Google Maps route organizer nor Apple Maps route planner can optimize and sequence routes. Thus, if you want to plan routes with multiple stops or optimize routes for the most efficient visitation sequence, you need to use commercial-grade mobile route planner apps.

For instance, Route4Me’s journey optimization apps enable you to automatically sequence hundreds of addresses and locations. Therefore, with a business driving route optimizer app, you can make scheduled service visits and deliveries faster and more cost-efficiently.

The best free route planning software solutions are Google Maps, Waze, MapQuest, and RouteXL. You can easily get a route planning free version of these apps on their respective websites.

On the one hand, Google’s route planner is the world’s most used web-based mapping service. Although it’s the best routing tool for individuals, it is unsuitable for commercial use since it lacks route optimization features. Similarly, the Waze Navigation app offers users the ability to navigate from one place to another. However, the inability to route more than 2 addresses at once and the lack of route optimization capabilities makes Waze suitable for personal use only.

On the other hand, the MapQuest route planner and the RouteXL routing tool enable users to plan optimized routes. However, neither of the 2 solutions provide advanced route customization features. So, RouteXL and MapQuest would be more suitable for small last-mile operations and for delivery startups with small fleets and few customers to visit.

Alternatively, you could also use an advanced route planner, like Route4Me’s route planning software, for free. Read more about our free trial below.

Route optimization is the process of automatically sequencing multiple addresses or locations in the most cost-efficient order. In addition to the number of addresses or locations, route optimization also uses various business routing rules and optimization constraints. For example, such rules and constraints can include fleet vehicle capacity, weather route conditions, weight restrictions, cargo cubic volume, vehicle types, etc.

Optimizing millions of routes for thousands of last-mile businesses and organizations for well over a decade, Route4Me has refined the definition of route optimization. Thus, in addition to solving the Traveling Salesman Problem and the Vehicle Routing Problem, Route4Me’s route optimization software enables business owners, managers, dispatchers, and logistics professionals to solve routing scenarios with extra layers of complexity.

Route planning is the process of mapping multiple locations and manually sequencing them to create a route with optimal driving directions. In contrast, route optimization is the process of automatically sequencing mapped locations in the most optimal order. To sum up, planning routes is manual address sequencing, and optimizing routes is automated route sequencing for the shortest travel times and distances.

Accordingly, Route4Me’s route mapping and planning software automatically maps addresses but also allows you to manually sequence route destinations. At the same time, route optimization software, such as Route4Me, enables you to input a set of rules and then automatically sequence destinations for the shortest driving directions and fast travel time between each destination. Thus, manually planned routes may have longer travel times and distances than routes automatically optimized with software.

Google Maps route planning refers to mapping addresses and manually sequencing between 2 and 10 destinations in a custom order using the world’s most used mapping service powered by Google.

However, there are pros and cons of Google routing. On one hand, the Google route planner app is free to use both as a navigation app and as a web-based mapping tool. It comes in handy when individuals need to plan trips with up to 10 destinations. Additionally, Google Maps supports such useful features as satellite or hybrid view, finding attractions and useful amenities along the created routes, etc. Thus, Google Maps is ideal for planning leisure activities and travel itineraries for individuals that want to discover new tourist attractions, restaurants, and other exciting places along their routes.

On the other hand, custom Google Map routing doesn’t offer any route optimization features. Specifically, with Google’s routing tools, you can map addresses accurately but can’t automatically calculate the most optimal route to visit them. Thus, route planning with Google Maps can only be used for planning personal trips with only a few destinations. Therefore, Google routing is not suitable for commercial use and cannot accommodate the complex routing needs of a last-mile business that has to visit more than 10 stops a day.

So, if you need optimized routes for your last mile business, you should opt for route optimization software designed to accommodate logistics-specific needs. For instance, when using Route4Me’s route optimizer, you can plan optimized routes with hundreds of thousands of addresses while factoring in a wide range of business rules and customer constraints.

To plan routes with Google Maps, you first need to go to the Google Maps Website or open the mobile app. After that, follow these simple steps:

1. First, input the departure addresses and then the destination where you want to go.
2. Next, click on the “Add Destination” button to add more than 2 stops.
3. After that, add up to 10 locations to the route in total.
4. Then, choose the preferred travel mode for driving, walking, bicycling, etc.
5. Finally, if you are using the mobile app, tap on the “Directions” button to see the directions for the route.

Learn more about planning multi stop routes on the Google Maps mobile route planner app.

Learn more about using the Google Maps Web route planner software.