Set up commercial truck routing – OptimoRoute Help Center

Commercial vehicles may face road restrictions based on vehicle size, weight, street access, and hazardous materials. OptimoRoute can account for these road restrictions when optimizing routes for commercial vehicles. In this article, you’ll learn how commercial vehicle routing works and how to set it up.

Who can use this feature
	Available on Custom plans
	Users that have administrator privileges
	United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India, the Middle East, South America, and South Africa

What is commercial truck routing?

Commercial truck routing is a type of vehicle routing profile designed for large commercial vehicles. When you assign this profile to a vehicle, OptimoRoute considers road restrictions that apply to commercial vehicles, including restrictions on bridges and tunnels.

The profile uses the following vehicle dimensions:

Height: 12 ft 6 in (3.8 m)
Width: 8 ft 3 in (2.5 m)
Length: 33 ft (10 m)
Weight: 33,000 lb (15 metric tons)

Hazmat routing option

If the vehicle carries hazardous materials, enable the “Hazardous material” option.

When enabled, OptimoRoute also considers road restrictions that apply to hazardous materials, such as flammable gases, toxic materials, and corrosive materials. These restrictions are considered in addition to the commercial vehicle size and weight restrictions listed above.

Setting up commercial truck routing

For whole fleet

To set up a commercial routing for your entire fleet, you just need to adjust the default routing profile:

Go to Administration→Settings
Click “Route & Planning” from the left menu
Select “Routing Profiles”
Choose the “Commercial Truck” option for the vehicle type
Choose other vehicle routing options if necessary
Click “Save”

Now this will be automatically applied to all your vehicles.

For mixed fleets

Step 1: Create multiple routing profiles

To use commercial truck routing for selected drivers and vehicles, create multiple routing profiles:

Go to Administration→Settings
Click “Route & Planning” from the left menu
Select “Routing Profiles”
Click “Add profile” to create a new profile
Give the profile a name
Choose the "Commercial Truck" option for the vehicle type
Choose other vehicle routing options if necessary
Click "Save"

Step 2: Assign profiles to vehicles

Next, assign your routing profiles to your vehicles:

Go to “Administration → Vehicles.”
Click “Add vehicle,” or select the vehicles you want to update and click “Edit vehicles.”
In the “Routing profile” section, select the routing profile you created.
Click “Save.”

Step 3: Assign vehicles to drivers

Finally, assign those vehicles to drivers:

Go to Administration→Drivers
Choose the driver(s) you want to edit
Click "Edit drivers"
In the "Default vehicle" section, choose vehicle with the commercial truck profile prepared in the earlier step
Click "Save"

Now your vehicles and drivers are ready and the next time you plan, they will be routed accordingly to avoid all prohibited roads.

Routing results

After you assign the commercial routing profile to your vehicles, you can test it by planning routes.

Go to the "Plan and Optimize" tab
Select a date with orders you want to optimize.
Click “Plan routes”

Review the planned routes and route summaries. OptimoRoute shows details such as stop order, estimated arrival times, and total route distance.

For vehicles using the commercial routing profile, OptimoRoute considers restrictions such as:

Road height, length, width, and weight limits
Bridge and tunnel restrictions*
Steep roads when another suitable route is available
Roads that are prohibited or designated for commercial vehicles under local access rules

Commercial routing considerations

Commercial routing profiles work with OptimoRoute planning and route optimization features.

Restricted roads and manual changes

OptimoRoute strongly discourages routes that use restricted roads and prioritizes safer, more suitable alternatives. However, you can still manually place orders on restricted roads or in restricted areas when needed.

For example, if you manually add an order to a route and the location requires travel on a restricted road, OptimoRoute can still allow the change.

Manual route changes can still place orders on restricted roads or in restricted areas.

Third-party navigation apps

Commercial routing applies to routes generated by OptimoRoute. It does not control the third-party navigation apps used by drivers.

As a result, a third-party navigation app may still suggest roads that are limited or restricted for commercial vehicles.

For commercial vehicle routing, consider using OptimoRoute commercial truck navigation.