Logistics route planning: what it is and why plan routes

Route planning is a method of defining routes so a fleet's deliveries and pickups are performed efficiently. Good planning can increase predictability and profitability in a company's fleet management.

Its central aim is to reduce the impact of operating costs linked to the routes planned and used in the operation, such as time and distance traveled.

In general, preparing routes in advance helps determine the best paths to take, generating greater fuel savings and toll savings, for example.

It is worth marking the distinction at the outset, because the two terms often appear together: route planning is planning — it defines which vehicle makes which stops, in what order and at what time. Tracking is monitoring and comes from specific solutions offered by suppliers in that market, which report where the vehicle is. Many operations use both, and one feeds the other, but the gain described here comes from planning.

Logistics route planning is a fundamental part of well-executed fleet management. Below, let's learn more about what it is, its importance and its impact on delivery time in transport operations.

What is delivery route planning?

Delivery route planning is part of one of the elements that make up the supply chain: delivering and picking up a product.

It focuses on delivery time and how quickly a fleet can cover a given route. It therefore directly affects the relationship between supplier and buyer, bringing trust and customer satisfaction (when done well).

However, efficient route planning requires considering the size of the fleet and vehicles, as well as their capacity. Also, how many deliveries and pickups drivers can make in a given interval.

Three constraints outside the planner's control also come into play: each customer's receiving window, the traffic and loading and unloading rules of the municipality the route passes through, and legal limits on driver driving time. In Brazil, the Brazilian Traffic Code establishes that professional drivers are prohibited from driving for more than 5 and a half uninterrupted hours in collective road passenger transport or road freight transport vehicles (art. 67-C, as amended by Law No. 13.103/2015). A route that only works on paper by ignoring this limit will not work the next day.

All these variables have a major ally in achieving on-time delivery: the route.

If it is not well planned, it can harm a company's entire pickup and delivery process.

With delivery route planning, drivers follow routes and instructions planned in advance. This reduces time in congestion and idle time at traffic lights, among other benefits.

As a bonus, fuel spending can decrease, since it is possible to plan shorter routes that include fuel stations with more attractive prices. This brings more gains to the company.

If you are just starting out, it is worth first understanding how to optimize a route before comparing systems: the logic of planning is the same, whether the tool changes or not.

Beyond these factors, what else makes route planning such an attractive step in fleet management?

Why is route planning so important?

There are countless benefits to adopting a delivery route planning system, including these main ones:

1. Avoiding traffic: With an integrated route planning system, it is possible to reduce exposure to dreaded traffic. Advance planning allows the manager to keep track of traffic flow and, in systems that integrate traffic information from suppliers in that market, plot a new route in real time to prevent delivery delays. Unexpected congestion still happens; what planning reduces is the predictable — known rush hour, signposted roadworks, a corridor that jams every late afternoon.

2. Increasing vehicle useful life: Poor road conditions add to vehicle maintenance costs, and route planning lets you look for better alternatives to reduce damage.

As a result, vehicle useful life tends to increase, minimizing emergency maintenance.

3. Greater driver safety: Especially when transporting high-value products, the manager can choose to configure the system to reduce the chances of cargo theft by avoiding areas considered dangerous — or at least plan for busier times of day if passing through the area cannot be avoided.

This also relates to the next benefit:

4. Scheduling delivery times: Some route planning systems offer a feature to schedule itineraries according to time windows. It is used to set when trucks can be loaded and unloaded under each city's laws in Brazil. These rules are municipal and vary from place to place, so settings need to be checked city by city rather than copied from one location to another.

5. Predictability: With scheduled times, the manager has greater control over exactly when each loading and unloading operation takes place, enabling better organization of the company's routine.

6. Efficiency: A planned service, where everyone involved already knows what to expect, tends to be more efficient. Coordination failures decrease, as does vehicle and driver idle time, provided the plan is updated when reality changes — an old plan repeated out of habit produces waiting again.

7. Savings: With a more organized routine, savings are also possible. Employees need to meet their schedules to keep the flow clear for other loading and unloading operations scheduled for the same day.

8. Profitability: More trucks can be loaded and unloaded in the same period, also influencing team productivity and deliveries. Combined with all the other benefits described above, this creates the conditions for profitability — how much translates into results depends on operating cost and pricing, which route planning alone does not determine.

Where driver scheduling is the bottleneck, gains appear when the route plan connects with shift management: a well-designed route with poorly distributed shifts merely moves waiting elsewhere.

How does route planning affect delivery time?

As a system connecting route optimization, fleet control and cost reduction through process automation, it directly affects goods delivery time.

By adopting route planning in the logistics plan, each vehicle's capacity can be fully used, delivering at more suitable times and using faster routes. This also means:

Delivering more orders, in less time, on a single trip.

Additionally, drivers feel more confident on the trip, knowing exactly where to go and reassured that the manager at the control center can intervene and quickly indicate a solution if there are road issues.

However, some factors should be considered when setting your operation's delivery times, such as:

• Each customer's needs;
• Types of vehicles to be used;
• Types of cargo to be transported;
• Traffic zone.

Added to these factors is the driver's legally required rest time in Brazil: on long trips, the time promised to the customer needs to accommodate stops required by Brazilian law, rather than just distance divided by average speed.

It is also worth comparing the planned time with what actually happened afterwards. Without this feedback — actual arrival time, time stopped at each point, a delivery that had to be rescheduled — the following week's plan repeats the same optimistic assumptions.

Once again, planning becomes a crucial step, and that is what delivery route planning provides.

To keep reading about delivery time, its other influences and how to control and optimize it, see our post on the subject.