Route planning in logistics: how to use a logistics route planner to overcome traditional route planning problems

Modern route planning and optimization tools are transforming the way enterprises execute delivery and logistics operations. A decade ago, customers were happy if businesses provided a home delivery service and were willing to wait for a few days for the delivery. Manual route planning and scheduling of multiple stops would take hours and it was not always cost-effective and efficient. With e-commerce booming, consumer requirements have changed. Delivery windows can be as short as a few hours or require same day delivery. Route planning and optimization of the best route involving multiple stops is needed. The traditional methods of route planning are not able to deal with real-time events that affect businesses every day.

Current route planning and scheduling is a complex process combining factors like traffic, weather, customer availability, providing real-time tracking of orders to customers, optimization of routes to enable maximum delivery stops. By implementing automated route planner software, businesses can constantly monitor the changes that affect the delivery network in real-time, allowing the delivery schedule to be fluid and optimized. 

Route planning is the process of creating the most cost-effective route with many stops to execute deliveries.

Route planning in logistics is important for businesses to accommodate customer delivery requirements, route availability, and vehicle issues, ensuring low operational costs with high consumer satisfaction. An efficient route will help to save fuel, increase the safety of vehicles and drivers and reduce overall expenses for business.

Traditional strategies involved in planning routes do not help businesses to cope with the rapid increase in their growth within the existing infrastructure. Additionally, changing consumer expectations, shorter delivery windows and rising operational costs make traditional route planning strategies outmoded. Traditional route planners are not able to keep track of delivery fleets in real-time, provide accurate ETAs for deliveries and reduce costs and empty miles.

Manual Dependencies

A lack of automation in data prevents businesses from analyzing information for critical decision-making. Easy availability of information is helpful in creating cost-effective strategies.

Lack of Real-Time Visibility

Lack of real-time visibility leads to deliveries being mishandled, customer expectations not being met and overall operation costs increasing. Real-time visibility helps businesses to track and monitor their fleet and tackle any exceptions or problems that occur in real-time.

Results in Poor Delivery Productivity

The absence of predictive visibility, cost-effective route planning and optimization of delivery operations will lead to poor delivery productivity. Traditional route planning is not be able to keep up with the demands of customers for timely, cost-effective and safe deliveries and provide real-time estimated time of arrival (ETA).

Non-Compliance with On-Time In-Full Adherence

The pressure on delivery performance has intensified as delivery time frames continue to shrink. On time in-full (OTIF) measures the extent to which shipments are delivered to their destination according to both the quantity and schedule specified on the order.

Increased Fuel Consumption

Traditional route planners are not able to map the most efficient routes possible to reduce fuel costs. Lack of information prevents planners from monitoring fuel consumption and avoiding empty miles.

Delivery Delays

Without real-time information on fleet movements and real-time traffic and weather conditions can lead to late deliveries and unhappy customers.

Poor Customer Experience

Customers expect to receive status updates of their deliveries at all times. Traditional routing methods are unable to predict the estimated time of delivery or the current location of the delivery to a customer. If an unavoidable delay occurs, customers cannot be informed, leading to a poor customer experience.

Challenges with Multi-Drop Delivery Route Planning

Executing different routes with multi-drop delivery, especially in densely packed cities, is one of the big challenges for last-mile logistics. Traditional methods of routing are not cost-effective and cannot provide timely deliveries.

Route planning solutions help in finding the most cost-effective route, given a set of specific business parameters. They take historical data and real-time constraints into account to provide optimal routes and schedules.

A free route planner can help, but with anything that is free, there will be certain limitations as to what the software is capable of producing. Most solutions do not allow planning route with unlimited stops. A few limitations in a free route planner are limited stops per optimization, one to four vehicle optimizations, unable to set delivery time windows and they are less user-friendly.

Google Maps is a free route planner and can be used for planning routes with 10 stops or less.

The difference between online mapping and route planning software is that for online mapping you would need to manually determine an efficient order for multiple stops in the route. Google Maps finds the shortest path between two stops, but does not find the optimized path for a route with multiple stops. Google Maps does not facilitate optimizing routes with constraints like delivery time windows, vehicle load capacities or driver breaks.

Route planning helps to figure out the shortest and most efficient route by collating from historical data, cost involved and the resources available. It allows businesses to reduce operating costs, save time and improve delivery productivity.

Major advantages:

Automated Route Planning

A route planner which takes into consideration historical data, the traffic and weather conditions to chart the shortest route between warehouse and the delivery destination would help in saving time, as well as fuel costs.

Real-Time Tracking and Visibility

Real-time updates regarding the position and availability of fleet at any given point of time would help to have better control of the fleet and drivers. The option to contact the driver directly and ensure they do not take any unnecessary breaks on the way, guide them through any hindrances will help to maintain delivery timelines. It ensures timely fulfillment with actionable alerts and notifications.

Intelligent Allocation and Dispatch

Route planner enables businesses to implement smart allocation of resources and by adopting automation, avoid mistakes. Deliveries across the route are planned in a logical order to ensure maximum work in minimal time.

Reduces Carbon Emissions

Route planner provides the most efficient routes to use less fuel. This limits carbon emissions and protects the environment.

Pick-up and Return

Businesses are able to interact with their drivers through a mobile app thus enabling them to manage and control job allocation, routing, sequence and also facilitates real-time communication with customers.

Electronic Proof of Delivery

Route planner equips delivery partners to collect electronic proof of delivery as an image, signature, or timestamp while also providing an easy way to collect feedback for your business.

Address Intelligence

Route planning software powered by machine learning algorithms (ML) has the ability to self-learn the ‘correct’ address just from delivery addresses, by analyzing the successes and failures of delivery to the same address in the past. A successful delivery to an address is saved into the system, which is used internally for the next delivery to optimize last mile connectivity making it faster and more accurate. By accurately mapping customer addresses businesses can shrink 28-32 percent of logistics costs by reducing miles per delivery.

Crowdsourcing Deliveries

Route planner enables businesses to outsource delivery tasks to third parties during peak business hours and holiday seasons thus allowing scaling of operations according to demand.

Businesses need to change their approach to route planning if they want to keep up with the customer demands and increase customer satisfaction.

Amazon is one of the few companies who have made their customers happy by their route planner which takes a customer-centric approach. Amazon’s ability to provide flexible delivery time window and date of delivery, notifications of delivery on the way has allowed them to cater to customer expectations.

A leading petroleum company in the United States was facing challenges due to the high cost of fuel and the ever-growing need for reliable delivery services. With the aid of route planning solution, the company was able to reduce transportation costs and keep track of the progress of deliveries more conveniently.