Multi-day long haul is a beta feature which expands upon weekly planning by allowing a dispatcher to create continuous routes which last 2 or more days. In this article we will explain how to plan with these settings.
| Who can use this feature | |
| All Custom plans with weekly planning enabled | |
| All users | |
| All regions | |
What is multi-day long haul planning?
This planning feature allows you to create continuous routes that last 2 days or more. For example, if your driver needs to transport goods across multiple states or provinces you can reduce the miles and time your driver will be on the road by using this planning feature.
Multi-day long haul also differs from regular planning because the routes will end each day at the beginning of the next day's route, instead of returning to the depot. This way the driver can decide whether to spend the night near the last stop for the day, near the first stop the next day, or somewhere in between.
Changes to routing rules with long haul
By enabling multi-day long haul routing, a few things in the system will change regarding how routes are calculated:
-
All drivers will have the same working hours (ex. 8:00 am – 4:00 pm).
- If drivers have different working hours set up, then the system will take the most common working hours and apply them to all drivers.
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Shifts cannot straddle midnight.
- For example, a route cannot start at 10:00 pm and end at 6:00 am the next day.
- Overtime is not considered.
- Breaks are not included in planning.
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No return to depot option.
- In practice this means that if you're planning for multiple weeks, and weekends are off, with the driver being back at home, then each week is essentially considered one route. This means, if your load capacity on your vehicle is maxed out with only a two or three day route, then the next week-long route will be planned in the following week, leaving the end of the current week available for another two or three day route. One way around this is to use the "end route" option.
Configuring multi-day long haul
| This feature is in beta and must be enabled by request. Please contact support to get this feature turned on for your account if you have a Custom plan or to find out your options for getting the feature. |
Planning days
You can configure which days you want to use for planning, such as disabling or enabling weekends or other days.
To configure your default planning days:
- Go to Administration→Settings
- Go to Route & planning →Weekly planning, in the left menu
- Choose the planning days by using the check marks to enable or disable days
- Choose the day that starts your week (eg. Sunday vs. Monday)
- Click "Save"
| Tip: You can also change these settings in the "Planning Settings" window. This is a better option if you have variability from week to week. |
End of route
Multi-day long haul considers each day part of the same route. Therefore, a long haul route will end and send the driver back to the depot when one of these things is true:
- There are no more orders to schedule (or)
- The driver’s capacity has been reached (or)
- The planning range has ended
Alternatively, routes can be ended by triggering the "End route" function. "End route" means that the driver must be back at their end location by the end of that day’s working hours.
To configure the end of the route:
- Click "Plan routes"
- In the "Planning settings" window, choose the "Advanced view"
- Select the drivers for which you want to modify the end of route
- In the driver settings section and the bottom of the planning settings window, click the option next to "End location" called "End route" (this will either be a yes or no)
- A new window will appear called "Planning Settings - Drivers" and in the "Start/End location" settings, check the box to enable "End route" or uncheck to disable it
- Click "Save"
Commercial truck profile
If your long-haul routes require routes that are considered for large commercial vehicles, we also recommend that you set up commercial trucking profiles for your vehicles so that your routes take into account vehicle restrictions, like height and weight.
Route planning
Once you are satisfied with your configuration, you can begin the routing process.
To plan with multi-day long haul:
- Go to "Plan and Optimize"
- Find the date picker and make sure the selected view is "Week" or more than 1 week
- Click "Plan routes"
- Configure anything extra you want in your planning settings window - like restrict the length of the route, or set a different start date than Monday.
- Then plan your routes
Routing results
When you plan a long haul route, the map will show each marker with a letter to say the day of the week (M, T, W...) and a number to denote the stop number for that day's route.
In this example we have:
- 1 driver with a 8 hour work day
- Depot in Philadelphia
- 9 stops
- 5 days
Start and end locations
In the example, the driver’s Monday route starts at the depot in Philadelphia, with the last stop in Raleigh, North Carolina. However, the end location for the day is in Roanoke, Virginia.
The end location is denoted by an "E" on the map.
The last stop is the first stop of the next day. So that the driver can choose where to stop and can start their day as close as possible to the next day's stop.
Working hours
The driver in the example has an 8 hour work day, which means they have a total of 40 hours available to work for the week. OptimoRoute will use the 40 hours to create the routes that make up the entire long-haul route.
Therefore, some days may have working hours longer than 8 hours and other days may be shorter than 8 hours. You can see the overview of how the routes are structured in the "Routes" tab including the total duration and work time.
The days with longer working hours factor in the optional drive time to the first stop on the next day's route. The extra drive time is subtracted from the start of the next day, giving the driver the flexibility to decide where to stop for the night. This calculation also accounts for a realistic arrival time in the morning, should the driver opt to not go further than the last stop at the end of the day.
Example:
In the above example, you will see that the driver has a 10 hour 25 minute work day on Monday, starting at 6AM and ending at 4:25PM. The total duration is calculated including the drive time to get to each location (including the end of the route).
The next day has the driver starting at 8:25AM to account for the 2h 25min "overtime" they did on the previous day.
At the end of the week, the driver has worked and driven a total of 39 hours and 16 minutes, coming just under their 40 hour allotted work week.