The massive increase of deliveries dispatched has produced a sudden rise in volume, straining even the largest systems in the industry. How can fleet managers plan and schedule package deliveries, route vehicles successfully and track vehicles and packages from start to finish? The key lies in implementing an efficient delivery route planning.
Effective package deliveries
We’ll walk you through each technical process involved in optimizing the process of transporting a package from its origin point to its customer, organizing everything from consistent location points within system storage to road hazards, load types in transport, traffic considerations and the last steps before final delivery.
With our extensive Maps APIs, fleet managers can easily oversee the implementation of fleet management systems through every step of the transportation process and beyond. So, using TomTom data, let’s see how a fleet manager would optimize moving that package to its destination.
Fleet planning and scheduling
When a customer makes an order, the address and each item's location need to be defined. Systems are organized differently, some using primarily coordinates, and some using addresses to keep track of locations. Working with different setups is key to being able to shift between the two.
TomTom’s
Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding from the Search API can be used to transform addresses into latitude-longitude coordinates and vice versa dependent on system needs, to create readable formats for different systems that will begin plotting routes for delivery. It can also create an opportunity for differentiation, to make sure all addresses line up with their equivalent map coordinates, as some addresses of course exist in multiple places or might be input incorrectly.
Using driving data for accurate estimated times of arrival
After there’s a steady link between the proper address and its coordinates, route optimization can have its early start by examining average speeds on travels paths, accomplished with TomTom Speed Profiles. This sets up the system to schedule accordingly in tandem with other aspects of routing, such as hazard considerations, traffic, and road closures, so that routes may be designated by speed within a given system for a baseline organization.
Speed profiles use millions of aggregated GPS measurements to help further predict roadway slowdowns and result in greater ETA accuracy. Using speed profiles is another way to further enhance the way routes are pre-planned, along with trip groupings, timetables, and the estimated travel time with traffic. In a nutshell, this means that speed profiles work with the mountain of data already layered to ensure the package is placed on the right truck going the right way to ensure that the package will arrive when the customer expects it.
These designations of addresses and paths of travel comprise an initial, significant step in the “pre-planning” process that helps set up the trip’s routing.