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Route Optimiser Software for Route optimisation industry - Environmental - Environmental Data and IT Systems
Route optimisation is about ensuring your driver’s journeys are as smooth and efficient as possible. But how does it actually work and when should you invest in delivery route optimisation tools? We’ve put together everything you need to know about transportation route optimisation below to help your business save time and money.
Route optimisation is the process of calculating the most efficient journey for a vehicle, based on numerous different factors. These factors include everything from the vehicle`s capacity to road conditions or regulations.
To understand the challenge of route optimisation, it’s a good idea to understand the vehicle routing problem.
The vehicle routing problem is an optimisation challenge with the goal of finding optimal routes for different vehicles visiting different locations.
Imagine you were a planner and had to determine the order your driver should travel to five different customers. Easy, right? In fact, there are already 120 different solutions for this simple dispatching problem resulting in 120 possible combinations of multi-stop routes. If the number of customers triples to 15, the number of possible routes increases to an incredible 1.3 quadrillion.
This example is known as the "traveling salesman problem” (TSP), or in the transportation industry as the vehicle routing problem.
Whilst the vehicle routing problem is an interesting example, it doesn’t even include the complexity of the real world challenges. There are additional factors and restrictions that limit the number of possible combinations and add a lot of complexity to the delivery route planning process. These limitations might include:
- Fixed delivery dates and assigned time slots at ramps
- Customer wishes or restrictions at delivery location
- Vehicle- and driver-specific equipment and abilities (e.g. temperature-controlled, hazardous goods, truck-mounted forklift, specific driver’s license of skill)
- Driving and rest times or working time regulations
- Combination of pick-up & delivery
- Several depots
When it comes to route optimisation, there is never “one best route.” Instead, there are different options that serve different goals. For example, you may be aiming for the shortest distance (optimising for distance), the fastest travel time (optimising for time), or the overall cheapest delivery route (optimisation for cost).
Given the complexities mentioned before, creating an efficient schedule manually is almost impossible after a certain volume of orders is reached. So how does it work? With the use of powerful algorithms and approximation methods, route optimisation tools can solve vehicle routing problems at the push of a button.