Weather-Related Travel Slowdown and Service Times Slowdown
Weather along routes can significantly affect your business operations in a number of ways. When it is raining or snowing outside, your fleet vehicles have to drive slower and your field employees have to walk slower which can delay deliveries and leave your customers dissatisfied.
Moreover, under certain conditions when it comes to weather along routes, your employees have to wear bulky clothing and thick gloves for staying warm which can make loading and unloading packages take longer and increase the time it takes to service each customer.
Checking different weather along route forecasts every time you want to plan a route seems time inefficient and not very reliable. Route4Me’s Predictive Weather Advanced Constraint automatically gathers weather data from multiple sources and notifies you about poor or dangerous weather conditions in the area where you are planning routes so that you can set up weather-related slowdown for travel and service times.
Table of Contents
Plan Routes with the Predictive Weather Constraint
To plan routes with the Predictive Weather 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, specify the route parameters to your preference and then click on the Create Route and Proceed to Add Addresses button.
In the Verify Addresses on Map window, you can view all imported and processed addresses on the map, as well as check their geocoding statuses. Green-colored dots indicate that the corresponding addresses were successfully geocoded with High Confidence. Addresses that have yellow colored dots next to them should be reviewed and fixed accordingly. Click on the Finish Import button to plan the route.
Set Up Weather Route Slowdown
After that, Route4Me checks multiple sources with different weather along route forecasts for the area in which you are planning the route. If the weather conditions in the corresponding area are expected to be poor or dangerous, you are automatically prompted with the summary of the forecast where you can adjust the slowdown for the total travel/driving time, as well as for the total service time of the route.
Set Up Weather Route Service Time Slowdown
To adjust the Service Time Slowdown, select the preferred slowdown percentage from the corresponding drop-down list. Defining the Service Time Slowdown increases the service time of each stop on the route by the selected percentage.
Set Up Weather Route Travel Time Slowdown
To adjust the Travel Time Slowdown, select the preferred slowdown percentage from the corresponding drop-down list. Defining the Travel Time Slowdown increases the total travel/driving time of the route by the selected percentage.
To apply the selected slowdown constraints, click on the Apply Changes button. If you do not want to apply the weather slowdown, click on the Skip/Continue button.
Once the route is planned, it is optimized and then opened in the Route Editor where you can modify it, as well as added to the Routes List with all your routes. After that, you can view how the applied Travel Time Slowdown and Service Time Slowdown affected the total travel and service times of the route. Also, you can adjust the Summary Table to display all time-related data.
Visit Route4Me's Marketplace to Check out Associated Modules:
- Route Optimization
Mixed Vehicles Routing
