A useful feature in RouteLogic is that we take into account the loading capacity of your vehicles when planning your routes. Capacity is available in the Pro Plus subscription.
How it works we explain to you in this article.
We conclude the article with some examples of how you can use the load capacity in practice.
Vehicle capacity
For each vehicle you can enter an "available capacity".
You can enter up to 3 capacity units in RouteLogic. We take 1 capacity unit into account if you enter only 1 for a vehicle and assignment. If you want us to take into account more capacity units, for example m³ and pieces and kilograms, we can do that too. In this case, fill in all 3 capacity units for the vehicle and for the job.
For each vehicle fill in at capacity what is the maximum quantity per unit that fits in this vehicle (e.g. m³, pieces, pallets, kilograms etc). For the vehicle, fill in what is the maximum m³, pieces and kilograms.
Indicate per job what the m³, pieces and kilograms are for the job and we automatically take it into account so that it always fits in your vehicles.
For each vehicle in RouteLogic, a number can be entered for the capacity. For example, in terms of capacity, a vehicle can hold 100 units. If "10" is entered here for one job, it is therefore possible to plan a maximum of 10 such jobs in one vehicle.
If you want to change the description of the units (standard units for capacity are: pieces, kg, m3) you can do this in your account settings under the tab"vehicle settings".
The units you enter under capacity will then be shown when editing/creating a job and in the expanded statistics you see once you plan a route.
Capacity assignments
With each job you add, you can specify the capacity of the job.
With each assignment you also have 3 units for capacity. Fill in 1 or fill in several.
Suppose a vehicle has room for 100 pieces, 50 jobs with a capacity of 2 will fit in the vehicle.
Suppose your vehicle has room for 100 pieces and 17 m3. Then 50 orders of 2 will fit inside provided they do not exceed 17 m3 combined. If each order is 1 m3 and contains 2 pieces then a maximum of 17 orders will fit in this vehicle.
Capacity graph and indication in route planning
Once you work with capacity and have entered this in your vehicles and assignments, you will see the capacity in your planning.
In the example below, you can see that the vehicle is loaded with 32 items, 275 kg and 11 m3. You can also see that the vehicle is not fully loaded yet, there is still space left.
(Picture is in dutch, it will be in english if your settings are in English)
Want to see more details of your loading?
Then click on the capacity bars. A popup will open:
(Picture is in dutch, it will be in english if your settings are in English)
In this popup you can see exactly how the vehicle is loaded. You can disable/enable the different units at the top to see only this data in the graph.
Delivery and pickup orders and loading capacity
Working with delivery orders and return orders.
RouteLogic takes into account the capacity of your vehicles when planning routes. We also take into account that there must be enough room in your vehicles to be able to pick up an assignment.
Suppose your vehicle has the capacity of 8 europallets. You take 8 pallets away to 8 different addresses (1 pallet/address). You also want to pick up 2 pallets at 2 addresses that day. In the route optimization we take into account that the pickups are only done when there is enough space in your vehicle.
We always calculate the fastest route for you, so it may be that as soon as there is enough loading capacity available we already schedule return pickups. If you don't want that, it's best to manually put the return orders at the end of your route and calculate the route using "keep order".
Another possibility is to give the return assignments fixed time slots at the end of the day. Then once you calculate the route (optimal route) the return assignments will also come at the end of your route.