The Top 5 Capabilities for Route Planning Solutions

Route planning solutions have undergone significant evolution due to advancements in route optimization, integration of artificial intelligence (AI), real-time GPS availability, and enhancements in geospatial data. These solutions offer a diverse range of capabilities that enhance productivity, customer service, environmental impact, and even facilitate innovative delivery business models for fleets of all sizes operating in a range of industries.

In this Article:

1. Route Optimization Algorithms
2. Multi-Stop Routing, Continuous Planning, and Robotic Process Automation
3. Incorporation of Advanced Geospatial Data
4. Real-Time Data and Predictions
5. Flexible Configuration and Personalization

Effective route planning solutions leverage sophisticated optimization algorithms to ascertain the most efficient routes. These algorithms consider factors such as:

• Distance.
• Traffic conditions.
• Vehicle specifications.
• Delivery constraints.
• Time windows.

By factoring in these variables, the route planning and optimization solutions generate routes that minimize travel time, fuel consumption, operational costs, and ensure timely customer order deliveries. Optimization not only reduces planning time but also yields results surpassing those of manual planning.

See how optimized planning creates superior plans quickly and frees up planners to focus on future improvements.

For businesses managing multiple stops or deliveries, route planning solutions enable optimization with multiple waypoints. They can handle complex scenarios where destinations need to be balanced across routes to determine the overall greatest efficiency and ability to meet customer delivery requirements.

Continuous planning is a crucial feature, facilitating extended planning horizons and providing real-time visibility into ongoing results, allowing for earlier order picking and staging. The synergy of continuous route planning and robotic process automation streamlines planning best practices, diminishing planning review times and enhancing planner productivity. This synergy results in fewer planners, superior outcomes, increased fleet efficiency, and extended order cut-off times.

Another critical capability of route planning solutions is the integration of high-fidelity geospatial data encompassing a wide range of data types. This integration offers access to:

• Intricate digital maps.
• Road restrictions.
• Points of interest.
• Predictive road speeds.
• A host of attributes impacting route feasibility and optimization efficacy.

This data empowers users with accurate route visualization, detailed street-level insights, and precise geographical feature mapping. Route planning solutions that leverage advanced geospatial data provide more accurate directions, enhanced route visualization, and informed decision-making.

A cornerstone capability of route planning solutions is their skilful use of real-time data to make estimated-time-of-arrival (ETA) predictions and real-time route adjustments. These solutions collate data from diverse sources, including GPS devices, mobile apps, and real-time traffic services, and analyze it immediately to forecast potential delivery route disruptions and their effects on ETAs.

Combining real-time data with live route optimization enables timely alerts to drivers, dispatchers, or managers regarding imminent disruptions and their implications. This combination can trigger automatic route modifications, including additions or removals of deliveries, route rerouting to address traffic or weather challenges, or minimizing disruptions to later deliveries on the route.

For route planning solutions to provide optimal and viable routes, they must possess the flexibility to uniquely model:

• Business operational requirements.
• Policies.
• Product specifics.
• Restrictions.
• Vehicle and driver prerequisites.
• Overarching business goals.

This configuration flexibility eliminates the need for custom code, enhancing future solution maintenance. Advanced route planning solutions harness AI to capture expert configuration insights. These insights, coupled with targeted business inquiries, facilitate the auto-configuration and testing of the solution, simplifying and streamlining the setup process.

Contemporary route planning solutions yield transformative impacts on delivery and distribution organizations by offering a spectrum of capabilities that significantly boost fleet efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Companies that implement these solutions empower planners to create superior-quality routes, optimize resource utilization, and operate within tighter timeframes. These capabilities deliver profound outcomes, including revenue growth, novel business model opportunities, and environmentally conscious delivery practices.

Learn how Descartes’ route planning software can take your planning results to the next level.