The Ease of Route Optimization
Fuel prices often fluctuate but there is still no question that these costs are generally rising, making fuel costs a constant concern for those involved in running a fleet. It’s best to develop a fuel management plan to keep these costs down. This can be done with tools such as route optimization software, fuel cards, driver safety training, and much more.
What is Route Optimization Software?
Route optimization software functions much like the GPS app you use on your phone, or even those old paper maps we used to use. However, this technology solution is often more robust offering in-depth route analysis and reports that give managers real-time solutions.
It wasn’t too long ago that drivers and managers were struggling to use paper maps with hand-written directions. Managers relied on their memory to come up with the best possible route solution and thereby improve overall fleet efficiency. This took time and resulted in extra costs, fuel mismanagement, driver time loss, and other fuel wasting factors such as never knowing if the drivers even stuck to the defined route.
The use of route management software solves all of these old problems, but still, managers fear new technology and cloud based software because of its technological innovation. The truth is this type of software is now totally intuitive, simple to use, and much more efficient than pulling out the old coffee stained map.
The Right SaaS Based Routing App Makes Life Simpler
Routing has become a crucial element for efficient fleet management practices. It is one aspect that can significantly increase profits and efficiency of the entire fleet. Sure, this part of managing a fleet has always been important, but never more so than now.
Using route optimization software, a manager is able to observe the performance of employees, fleet vehicles and the efficiency of their planned routes.
Today managers can create routes with multiple drop-off or pick-up stops that they can change and optimize at a moment’s notice. Fleet managers simply add a new stop location and the driver can see it immediately from his or her smartphone.
This type of real-time software can also help manager’s compare planned routes versus actual routes, and compare and analyze real-time data such as:
- Actual arrival times compared to expected arrival times
- Planned and unplanned stops the driver might make
- Time the driver spent idling
- + much more
Besides being able to plan routes out more efficiently, managers can also access other reports with information such as the number of routes followed, a better route system, gasoline costs for certain routes, vehicle stops along the route, etc. It is this type of information that gives a manager an entire summary of each drivers activities while on the job.
The types of information available in these reports include:
- Routes
- Departures
- Arrival times
- Time spent at home
- Time spent at the office
- Time spent at customer locations
- Driving distance
In a typical case, with the help of route optimization software, managers can view vehicles on routes, driver zones, and then use this information to dispatch last minute changes and updates to routes.
The availability of this real time information gives managers the ability to better manage drivers, reduce excessive costs, increase revenue, and many other benefits – all at your fingertips!
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