View and understand driver detail fields

Driver profiles can be enriched using the fields provided. In this article, we will cover what these fields mean and how they are used. 

Details

This is the first information you will see on a driver profile. 

Skills

Driver skills are related to what “skills” the driver needs to successfully complete an order and determines which orders this driver can be assigned to. Skills can be set up in Administration→Skills.

To add skills to a driver:

1. Click the dropdown box and all the available skills will appear for selection
2. Choose the skills
3. Click "Save"

To remove skills:

1. Select the skill you want to remove
2. Click “Remove skill”
3. Click "Save"

Tip: Use the "Valid from" and "Valid to" settings to add expiration dates for particular skills. This is useful when a driver has a certification or other skills that requires renewal.

Cost

The cost section allows you to make drivers more “expensive” based on different scenarios, effectively prioritizing certain drivers over others when taking the cost number into account. This is a routing constraint that will affect how the routing algorithm chooses to allocate orders.

For example, if you want the software to use all your own employees before routing a contractor, set the contractor's costs to double. The software will gladly work to reduce your overall costs by avoiding using the contractor unless necessary.

There are four different costs:

• Fixed cost
• Cost per hour
• Cost per distance
• Overtime cost

Fixed cost

This is the base cost to use this driver. It is not multiplied by hours used or distance traveled. The default value is 0.

This is useful when wanting to prioritize the use of one driver over another for example, if you want to prioritize your own in-house drivers over contractors. Increasing the fixed cost for one driver, will de-prioritize using them for others with lower fixed costs.

Cost per hour

This is the cost per hour and will limit the amount of time a driver is on the road if the driver is more expensive than others. In this case, the cost will be multiplied by the hours worked. The default value is 10.

This can be used for situations where you may have a driver assigned to a vehicle that gets a lot of miles to the gallon. Increasing the per hour cost will prioritize giving them the route with the least amount of overall hours.

Cost per distance

This is the cost per miles or kilometers and will limit the amount of distance traveled by the driver if the driver is more expensive than others. The default value is 1.

This might be useful for a volunteer that is using their own vehicle and doesn’t want to put a lot of miles on it, despite not having any cost-per-hour. Increasing the distance cost for them will automatically give them more orders close to the depot.

Overtime cost

This cost only comes into play if the driver has overtime hours allowed and will affect which drivers are allocated orders when overtime is a factor. The default value is 30.

This is also useful for different contracting scenarios where one driver may either cost more or just simply cannot do overtime unless necessary. By default, overtime has a high cost, so the software will only use it when necessary. But you can increase the overtime cost if you want to use it even less (perhaps you'd rather use another driver for two hours instead).

Tip: Cost is a relative constraint, so using exact driver wages here isn’t ideal, but rather consider making changes that will influence which driver is prioritized in certain situations like miles driven or hours worked.

Start and end location

Start and end locations allow you to set up where your driver is starting their route from and where they are ending their routes. By default this is set to the driver starting and ending at the depot, but you can determine a different location for your drivers if they are starting from home or from a different hub. 

Service areas

This is where you can set up the service areas for your driver. You have different tools available to help you mark their service areas. 

To create a service area: 

1. Click on the polygon symbol to start using the lasso tool
2. Click on different points on the map to create an area
3. Click on the first point to close the loop and create the area
4. Use the pencil icon to adjust the area by dragging the boxes
5. Save changes

Speed

Driver speed is used to adjust the speed at which a driver can perform their orders and is used by the routing algorithm to determine driver speed in the field (not their vehicle). So for example, a faster driver will be able to perform more orders than a slower driver. This may be due to things like skill, experience, number of employees in a vehicle...etc.

Mobile app

This allows you to see the status of the drivers mobile app. If they do not have the OptimoRoute driver app activated, you can create an activation key here.