Navigation & guidance app systems require the selection of best routes for their operations. The best route software system provides route guidance instructions using navigation sensors.
The definition of best route may be different from one application to another.
It may be the fastest route or the safest route.
The complexity of computation increases when many parameters and large size of road networks are involved. Conventional algorithms are not suitable for navigation and guidance systems, as they cannot meet the real-time requirement. Alternative approaches, such as heuristic algorithms, have been proposed.
What is route optimization?
It is the process of determining the most cost-efficient route. It’s more complex than simply finding the shortest path between two points and includes points such as the number and location of all required stops on the route.
Other factors:
| Number of turns or intersections along the route |
| Left hand turns (crossing the line of traffic) |
| Best or nearest driver to dispatch on the route |
| Traffic congestion for current time of day |
| Best approach to a stop on the route |
Different route options can quickly add up.
With one vehicle and 10 stops, the number of possibilities is 3,628,800. If you have a fleet of five vehicles that number jumps to a whopping 37,267,043,023,296,000.
This is why route optimization is performed by computer algorithms and advanced heuristics that can quickly narrow down the options.
Route optimization solutions help home delivery businesses minimize driving time and fuel consumption by finding the most efficient route for the entire fleet.
Route planning gets complex when you need to account for delivery time-windows, balancing loads across the fleet etc.
Navigation apps like Waze and Google Maps might be considered to get directions from point A to B.
But what happens when you need to plan routes for point A to Z or when you have 100, or 1,000 destinations?
Alternative to Google Maps
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Routing constraints
Benefits of Delivery Route Optimization Software
Delivery route optimization software can help a delivery business to reduce its driving time by up to 40%, and route planning time by up to 95%.
Planning routes in minutes, not hours
The value of time is a non-monetary cost, but it can be translated into a financial spreadsheet.
Weigh the time spent on route planning vs. your wage for that period of time + the additional monetary value you could generate by working on other tasks.
Lowering costs to increase profitability
Route optimization has become important to delivery businesses because of competition in the market space. For profitability, revenues need to exceed costs, but businesses aren’t finding room to raise prices.
The biggest reason customers do not opt for delivery is because of the price. This sentiment has led to a surge in route optimization software adoption for delivery companies.
