Route optimization for multiple routes — also known as Vehicle Route Planning (VRP) — helps you generate the most efficient routes across multiple vehicles in a single plan.
Instead of planning each vehicle's route individually, VRP lets you assign a pool of jobs to a fleet of vehicles at once, with the system determining the optimal distribution and sequence automatically. Each VRP plan can consist of multiple routes, with each route assigned to one vehicle.
There are 4 steps involved in when planning multiuple routes
Note: Maximum of 300 jobs per plan.
1) Selecting the jobs for Route Planning
Create jobs in your Detrack account.
There are 2 ways to select the jobs for route planning.
Jobs table
Select the jobs that require planning.
Click Actions > Plan multiple route.
Map View
Navigate to Map.
Click the Select Mode.
Select the date of the jobs for the jobs to appear in the map.
Click to use any of the selector tools to select the required jobs for planning.
The map marker of the selected jobs will have its color changed.
Click on Actions > Plan multiple routes.
2) Generating routes for your drivers
A form with the various route parameters will appear
Settings for drivers/vehicles
Select the Vehicle Mode => Car / Motorcycle / Truck / Heavy Truck. => The vehicles corresponding to the selected Vehicle Mode will be available for selection.
Select drivers
Check the vehicles that are to be utilized for this plan.
Retain driver assignment => If enabled, the systems will forcibly try to plan the jobs to the respective assigned vehicles. (Optional).
Define Route Preferences
Provide a Route group name => Identifier for this VRP plan.
The generated Run Name of the routes would be appended with a Route Start Number suffix.
Default: 1.
Assuming that the Route group name is “AM-Run”, the generated output will be “AM-1”, “AM-2”, etc.
Select a Start Depot => Start location/s of the vehicle/s.
Select an End Depot => End location/s of the vehicle/s. (Optional).
Select the Route Time Window
Use vehicle’s working hours => Take reference from the information of the various vehicles from Settings > Vehicles.
Provide a time window => Override the information of the various vehicles from Settings > Vehicles.
Show more advanced settings (Optional)
Provide a Service Time => Amount of time spend at each job location. Providing a value in this field will overwrite the jobs’ Service Time value for planning. Will affect the generated ETA Time of the jobs.
Traffic (Optional) => Introduce a buffer to slow down the speed of the vehicle on certain roads. Default: Assumes no traffic.
Avoid Toll => Routes would likely traverse a longer distance and take longer time to avoid tolls / gantries. Default: No.
Route Start Number => Suffix for the Route Name to begin with. Default: 1. The generated Run Name will be {Route group name}-{Route Start Number}. Assuming that the Route group name is “AM-Run”, the generated output will be AM-1, AM-2, etc.
Max Speed (Optional) => Maximum traveling speed of the vehicle. Note:
Navigate to Settings > Organization > General > Unit of distance to toggle between the change of units (km/h vs MPH).
Providing a value will cause the systems to utilize certain roads for routing.
Default: 140km/h for cars and 90km/h for trucks.
Click Proceed to Optimize Route when done.
A pop-up will appear at the bottom right hand side of the dashboard.
Note: This process will run asynchronously in the background.
Upon completion of the planning, another pop-up will appear.
You may navigate to view the planned routes by clicking on either the View Route Table or View Route On Map button to review the various routes.
When you plan a VRP route, your route results will appear on the route table as individual routes. You can click into the routes to view the route details, as well as send the route to drivers so that it appears on their driver app.
The Route Table page can be accessed either through:
Routes > Multiple Routes
View Route Table button of the pop-up after the completion of the VRP planning process.
This Route Table page will display a table of planned routes.
There are 3 primary actions that can be performed on this page.
Releasing Planned Routes To Drivers
Viewing or Editing The Individual Route
Deleting a Route Plan
3) Viewing or Editing a Route
To view / edit the various individual route, click on a row or the Edit button of the plan.
The corresponding route information will appear.
To edit the route, click on the Edit Route button.
The plan will turn into Edit mode.
Editing the details of the individual job
Click on the Edit button corresponding to the job.
A side pane will appear for editing the job.
To manually rearrange the sequence of the jobs, perform a click-and-drag of the job to the required position.
To delete a job from the plan, click on the corresponding Delete button to the job.
Note: This deletion will only remove the job from the plan; not remove the job from the Jobs page.
Click Save Route Changes button when done.
4) Releasing Planned Routes To Drivers
You may release the planned routes to your drivers for them to perform the jobs by performing the following:
When releasing multiple routes to drivers
Select the plan by clicking on the corresponding checkboxes located to the left of the table.
Click on Actions > Send to driver.
When releasing a single route to a driver
Click on the corresponding Send To Driver button of the plan.
You can only release a route to a driver via the route page using the Send Route To Driver button.
The jobs in the plan will be populated with the various planning information (e.g. Run No., ETA Time, Job Sequence, Assign To).
To perform the jobs of the optimized route, your driver can perform the job in a descending order (top-down).
Example display of jobs in Driver App after route planning.
Deleting a Route Plan
To delete the unwanted plan,
Multiple plans
Select the plan by clicking on the corresponding checkbox/es located to the left of the table.
Click on Actions > Delete.
