New Optimization Features: Weighted Priorities for Destinations, Multiple Time Windows

Priority Attributes:

When optimizing routes, you can now add weighted priorities to stops on a route.

Why add priority attributes?

  • To visit VIP (or frequent) destinations first
  • To prioritize a visit to destinations (or customers) that you were unable to service (or deliver, or pickup) on a previous occasion
  • To sort your route destinations based on any numerical value, such as “Gross Sales”, to visit under performing stores earlier in the day
  • The routes generated will still be highly optimized, but will place destinations with a higher numerical value earlier in the route
  • All the stops that cannot be visited will be placed into a sub-route called “Unrouted”

 

Multiple-Time Windows

While some of our customers have guaranteed AM pickups/deliveries, others have a more flexible visitation schedule.

Because highly efficient routes are so critical to our users, multiple-time windows now permit our optimization engine to squeeze in destinations on routes where they may not have previously fit.

For example, in the past you could only have a single time window. If that time-window was 6AM to 12PM, and the destination was much closer to your PM routes, your driver would have made a big detour to rush their in the morning.

With multiple-time windows, you can now add a 2PM to 4PM time slot to this distant address, and it will be clustered closer to the PM route destinations.

 

Both features are exposed through the Route4Me API.

 

Released By: Dragos, Roman, Vladimir, Sergey