Route optimization is the process of finding the order, and sometimes the truck assignment, that minimizes total driving for a set of jobs that have already been booked for a given day.
How it is measured
Route optimization is judged by the drive it removes:
Drive saved = Total drive time of the original sequence − Total drive time of the optimized sequence
It works inside constraints. Each job has an arrival window, a duration and sometimes a required skill. The optimizer can only reorder within what was promised. If a customer was told 8:00 to 10:00, that job cannot move to the afternoon, however much driving it would save.
Say a technician has four jobs booked: 8:00 downtown, 10:00 forty minutes north, 11:30 back downtown, 2:00 north again. The windows are fixed, so the best an optimizer can do is little. The driving was decided when those four times were promised on four separate calls.
Why it matters for scheduling
Route optimization is the lever most companies reach for first because the problem is visible on the morning of. It does reduce driving when the jobs are flexible, or when windows are wide enough to allow reordering.
Its limit is timing. It acts after the jobs are booked. The larger lever acts earlier: offering only slots that fit the drive. That is travel-feasible scheduling, and it is how CrewLink works, scheduling around the drive, not the calendar. The two are compared in detail in Route optimization vs. feasible scheduling, and the product-level difference is on CrewLink vs. route optimization software.
A common mistake
Expecting route optimization to fix backtracking created at booking. If the windows sold to customers force the truck to cross the territory twice, reordering cannot remove it without breaking a promise. A day that came out of the phone queue in a bad shape needs a different booking process, not a better optimizer.
Related terms
- Travel-feasible scheduling shapes the day before booking. Route optimization reorders it after.
- Backtracking is the waste route optimization tries to remove.
- Drive time is the quantity being minimized.
Common questions
Is route optimization the same as routing?
In everyday use, mostly yes. Strictly, routing is planning a path between stops, and optimization is choosing the stop order and assignment that minimize the total.
When does route optimization help the most?
When jobs have flexible timing, such as recurring maintenance with wide or no windows. The more fixed the promised times, the less there is to optimize.
Can route optimization reduce arrival windows?
Indirectly at best. Narrower windows come from knowing, at booking, that the drive fits. Reordering the day afterward does not create that certainty.