Once your visits are loaded on the interface, you can go to Create routes. Depending on your account settings you will see different options at the time of creating routes. We are going to review all the options and explain brievly to you in what consists each one.
You can choose the optimization options clicking on the arrow next to Create routes. Depending on the options you select the system will propose you different routes according to your way of working.
If you click on the Create routes button without selecting any otpion, SimpliRoute will create routes in regards to the vehicle quantity you selected in Step 1 of Initial information. If for example you selected 10 vehicles, SimpliRoute will present you 10 routes, one for each vehicle, so that all the visits could be attended respecting the restrictions you entered in Step 2 (time windows, load, skills, priority, etc).
If you click on the options your routes will change like this:
Basic options of optimization
Minimize vehicles: with this option, SimpliRoute will see if it is possible to attend all the points using less vehicles than the ones selected. If you selected 10 vehicles, SimpliRoute could present you 8 or 9 routes. Test this option if you are interested in decreasing the size of your fleet.
Join similars: ¿You have several visits in exactly the same place? If you have to deliver several products at the same adress use this option. SimpliRoute will join in a unic visit all the deliveries which go in the same place, adding its load, which guarantee that these orders do not remain in separated vehicles.
Open routes: SimpliRoute by default calculates routes which consider that vehicles have to go back to the warehouse or to their point of origin. If you choose XXXX, you will tell to the system this is not necessary and that your vehicles can finish the day where they are.
Advanced options of optimization
Use current location: if your vehicles are already in the street and you want to do a second or a third route for the day, this option can be usefull to you. Using XXXXX takes into account the last GPS position of your vehicles so as to calculate how long it would take them to go back to the warehouse and do a second route. This option only allows you to work with the vehicles which already finished their routes, so that selecting it, a message will alert you saying what are the vehicles already ready for a second route and the ones who are not.
Cluster: a clusteris a zone or region. This option allows you to create routes so as to analize how are distribuited your clientes. This is designed for businesses who need territorial division for a huge amount of points. Under the cluster option, all the conditions of time windows, loads, skills, etc. are ignored so that the option is focused only on creating zones or regions. The cluster option overwrites any other optimization option so that you can use it with precaution.
Cluster with route optimization: this option is similary to the normal cluster but in addition to creating routes, after this there will be a basic order for the points into each cluster. Like the cluster option, the generated order does not respect the restrictions you had entered before but it will show you what is the best way to go through all the points of each cluster.
Once you have selected the options you need, click on Create routes and SimpliRoute will begin to calculate. The calculation time depends on the visit and vehicle quantity you take into account. As a reference, for routes with 10 vehicles and 200 addresses it should late 1 or 2 minutes maximally.