Territory-Based Single Driver Optimization – Enterprise Architect

Route4Me’s Enterprise Architect is designed for geocoding and optimizing millions of points and producing the most efficient routes and addresses territories with hundreds of thousands of addresses in a smooth and quick manner. When planning routes, besides the most efficient sequence of stops, you also need to figure out the most optimal way to delegate the right tasks to the right team members. Instead of planning over-sized routes and making your workers travel back and forth across the city, you can break your service area up into optimally sized territories and assign each field employee to the most suitable territory. With the Enterprise Architect, you can upload hundreds of thousands of addresses and effortlessly use them for generating Automatic, Fixed Size, Balanced Size, or Zip Code territories. Moreover, if your business provides multiple services that require your employees to use different equipment or have different skills, you can create a separate territory for each service you provide and then use each territory for planning one or multiple routes.

To plan routes with address territories, first, you need to generate these territories. To do so, you need to import addresses that you want to use for generating territories and then geocode them. To geocode addresses, first, go to the “Addresses” tab and then import the addresses that you want to geocode by clicking on the “Import” button and then uploading the spreadsheet with addresses (in CSV format) from your device.

For the spreadsheet to be successfully processed, it must contain a header row and data rows. The header row defines the type of information you are importing, while the corresponding data rows contain the actual data that is being imported into the app. In addition to the obligatory “Address” column, you can also include other data columns with Route4Me’s reserved attributes (i.e., Revenue, Weight, etc.) and custom data. To learn more about Route4Me spreadsheet requirements, visit this page.

Once the spreadsheet is imported, all columns with their corresponding data are automatically uploaded to the “Addresses” tab. To geocode the imported addresses, click on the “Geocode” button respectively.

After that, select the column that contains the addresses that you want to geocode and then transfer it from the left-side list to the right-side list by clicking on the corresponding button. If you want to automatically upload all geocoded addresses to your Route4Me Synchronized Address Book, check the corresponding box and then click on the “Start” button to initiate geocoding.

Once the addresses are geocoded, the app assigns unique latitude and longitude coordinates to each geocoded address, as well as automatically corrects and completes all geocoded address (“fixed_address” column). Next, to use the geocoded addresses for generating territories, click on the “Territories” button.

After that, select the preferred territory optimization type (Automatic Size, Fixed Size, Balanced Locations, or Zipcode) and then click on the “Calculate” button accordingly.

Once the territories are generated, they are opened on the map where each territory is displayed with its corresponding borders and highlighted in its distinct color for better visualization.

In the “Addresses” tab, each address is assigned a Group number that indicates the territory which the given address belongs to. NOTE: Territory numbers start with “0.”

Once the Group number is assigned to each address, you can use the generated territories for planning routes. To do so, first, click on the “Optimize” button.

After that, in the “General” tab, input the name for the route(s) into the corresponding field and then adjust the route’s schedule accordingly. In the “Service Time per Stop” field, you can define the preferred service time that will be applied to each stop/address on the planned route (learn more).

Next, use the corresponding field to add the address of the routes’ depot/starting point and then click on the “Geocode” button to geocode the added address. If you want all planned routes to start from the same depot, check the “Default Depot” box accordingly.

To plan a single route from each territory, in the “Optimization” tab, first, check the “Group Addresses” box and then select the “group” column from the list to group all addresses by their group ID. Next, select the Single Route optimization type by checking the corresponding box.

After that, choose where to end each planned route after the last stop on each route is visited.

In the “User and Vehicle” tab, you can assign a team member (learn more) and a vehicle to the routes. To finish and plan the routes, click on the “Start” button.

Once the routes are planned, they are added to the Routes List where you can manage them accordingly (learn more).

To view the planned routes on the map in the Enterprise Architect, first, select the preferred routes and then click on the “Show Selected” button.

After that, you can view the planned routes on the map, as well as view the aggregated metrics of all selected routes in the Summary Table.

When you use the Single Driver Route optimization for the territory-based route planning, the Enterprise Architect plans a single route with all addresses within the borders of each territory (the color is assigned to routes and territories randomly for visualization purposes).

Route4Me’s Enterprise Architect supports near real-time data synchronization with your Route4Me account. Thus, when you plan new routes using the Enterprise Architect, these routes are instantly synchronized with your Route4Me account and become available in your Routes List on the Route4Me Web Platform.