Mon - Fri 24 hours

Easy Steps to Improve Your Route Planning in 2025

Easy Steps to Improve Your Route Planning in 2025
Easy Steps to Improve Your Route Planning in 2025
Share this article

Route planning can help you make 2025 the year your business grows in directions you never imagined. You want to be in charge of your fleet and orders, not feel overwhelmed and disengaged.

Routing is the art of finding the most efficient and effective route between multiple locations. But for any new journey, you need a plan. Routing helps consider factors like distance, time, traffic, and road conditions.

But first, how do you set up a route planner and choose the right one?

Choosing the Right Route Planner

Selecting the right route planner is crucial for a seamless delivery experience.

But how do you choose the right app? It all depends on your business needs. You might need a more advanced routing app with specific features to help your business grow. 

Maybe you need features for multiple routes, route optimization, or fleet management software for those breakdown covers.

When choosing a route planner, consider one that is focused on accuracy and reliability. Navigating through a busy suburb or a rural area with the right tools will make the journey cost-effective and fast and keep your customers happy.

Here are easy steps to improve your plans in 2025 and set yourself on the winning path to scale your business.

Step 1: Route Planning Starts with Clear Objectives

Before even opening a route planner, determine what your priorities are.

Does your company value speed, cost, or safety?

If you are in the delivery space, fuel efficiency may be at the top of your priority list. As a field service business owner, you might want to focus on meeting tight appointment windows.

Determining your company’s success will make a difference in planning your delivery strategy.

Step 2: Setting Up Your Route Planner

Setting up your route planner is straightforward. You need to determine where your drivers will be leaving from (the start location). Is it the warehouse or the dark store? And where is the end destination?

If you have an online store, the journey could involve multiple locations or stops. With the right route planner, you can easily add them to your route.

Most route planners offer the flexibility to choose between metric and imperial units, catering to your preference.

Step 3: Consider Your Transportation

Now that you’ve determined the locations, it’s time to calculate the quickest route.

Route planning involves which transport should be used on which days or tasks. Trucks, vehicles, and scooters all have different output levels.

Route optimization software is essential for considering traffic jams, weather, and other real-time delays. It also impacts which transportation is used in these circumstances.

Step 4: Gather Information

Manually planning your routes can take up a lot of your time. Using an app that is synchronised with route optimization will be a time and cost saver.

Route optimization automatically collects information that can assist in better planning, being more organized, giving more accurate information to customers, and being more proactive in fast-tracking deliveries.

Information collected through route optimization software, such as weather, traffic, and delays, is then incorporated to automate the best route. It takes into account your start point and allows for multiple stops, giving fast and effective driving directions.

Many modern route planner tools integrate with live data feeds, ensuring you stay ahead of unexpected delays.

Step 5: Multiple-Stop Optimization for Better Planning

Multi-stop optimization is a must if you are managing deliveries or field service calls. If you’ve been manually piecing stops together, it’s time for route optimization.

It helps to calculate the fastest sequence based on traffic patterns and road conditions.

Delivery drivers are not overworked and use their time much more wisely.

Why Manual Route Planning is Costing You More Than You Think

If you are still manually finding possible routes, comparing your options, choosing your route, planning your stops, and getting directions, you are losing valuable time and money.

This inefficient and old way of planning routes wastes driver hours and frustrates customers.

You might think, ‘I’ve been doing this for years, and it works,’ but even small inefficiencies compound over time, ultimately affecting the bottom line and customers.

For a more innovative approach, use a route planner that uses automated systems, like route optimization software, to ensure each trip is calculated to the maximum, directing drivers to detour before encountering trouble on the road. 

About the author

Mia Lindeque

Mia is a multi-award-winning journalist. She has more than 14 years of experience in mainstream media. She's covered many historic moments that happened in Africa and internationally. She has a strong focus on human interest stories, to bring her readers and viewers closer to the topics at hand.

Share this article

L2u Online Store - Logo

Your message has been sent.

Someone from our support team will reply to your inquiry within 24 hours.

Capterra Pixel