When shopping for a driving route planner for your small to mid-sized fleet, it’s important to make sure that the route planning software tool has the features and functions that will transform your operations.
Three “Must-have” Driving Route Planner Features
Here’s a quick look at three top “must-have” features that should be on your wish list for a driving route planner, and how they can transform your operations for the better.
Driving Route Planner Feature 1: Ability to handle more than 10-20 stops
There are lots of free route planning tools on the market but the problem is: most of them only support up to 10-20 stops. This is just not enough for a busy business that’s handling many service calls, deliveries, or pick-ups in the course of a work day.
How It Transforms Fleet Operations:
- Allows you to optimize all your routes vs. just a portion of your routes
- Saves up to 2 hours per week for your fleet managers and/or route planners in the office
Driving Route Planner Feature 2: Ability to handle multiple routes
Again, the free route planners don’t require any monetary investment. But if you have more than 1 vehicle in your fleet, it should be a major priority that the route planner software you buy can process multiple routes and display them on the same map. The business intelligence that business owners & fleet managers gain from this function allow you to further refine routes, and make more strategic decisions about what vehicles in the fleet are handling what calls.
How It Transforms Fleet Operations:
- Allows you to refine routes based on seeing multiple routes depicted on the same map
- Saves money
- Distributes the workload more evenly among drivers and service technicians
- Improves customer satisfaction
Driving Route Planner Feature 3: Multiple options for routing
Free route planners typically offer very limited functionality, and you’re stuck with whatever is offered. In contrast, paid route planners can cost very little (less than $25 a month), but offer the ability to route in multiple ways. The two routing options that potential buyers of this technology should be looking for are:
- Round-trip Routing: Start and finish at the same location, and
- Start-to-Finish Routing: Driver starts at one location and ends at another location
How It Transforms Fleet Operations:
- Multiple ways to route allow you to route according to the needs of your business. For example, some businesses have their fleet start at headquarters and end at headquarters. Other businesses might want to start at a distribution center and then have the vehicles secured at a headquarters location
- Saves time getting vehicles back to where they’ll start work the next day
There are many important functions that should be on the wish list when shopping for a driving route planner for your small to mid-sized fleet. To read more about How To Buy The Right Route Planning Software, access a Buyer’s Guide on the RouteSavvy.com website, in the Knowledge Center on Route Planning Software.
To learn more about driving route planner software that can save significant money & time, visit RouteSavvy.com, or sign up for our Free 14-day Trial.
