Route Optimization
Definition
Route optimization is the practice of sequencing a technician's daily stops to minimize total drive time and fuel cost.
What Route Optimization Means for Your Business
What it means
Route optimization takes a tech's list of jobs and reorders them based on location, time windows, priority, and traffic. The goal is maximum billable time, minimum windshield time.
Why it matters
A tech who drives less bills more. Every 30 minutes saved on the road is another $100 to $200 of billable labor, depending on trade. Multiply that by a fleet and the impact is huge.
How contractors use it
The dispatcher uploads the day's jobs, the system returns an optimized sequence, and techs receive turn-by-turn directions. Smart platforms reoptimize throughout the day as emergencies, cancellations, and overruns hit.
Real-World Example
A 12-truck electrical contractor in Atlanta saved 45 minutes per tech per day through route optimization. At $145 per billable hour, that added $32,000 in monthly revenue with zero new hires.
Related Terms
Dispatch
Dispatch is the process of assigning field technicians to service calls and routing them to customer locations in the most efficient order.
GPS Dispatch
GPS dispatch uses real-time vehicle location data to assign the closest qualified technician to each new service call.
Fleet Tracking
Fleet tracking is the use of GPS devices in company vehicles to monitor location, speed, idle time, and driving behavior in real time.
Technician Utilization Rate
Technician utilization rate is the percentage of a tech's paid hours that are actually billed to customers as productive work.
Time on Site
Time on site is the total minutes a technician spends at a customer's location from arrival to departure on a single job.
Put This Into Practice with Free Software
Kaldr Tech handles route optimization and everything else you need to run your shop. $0/month, 3.5% + 30¢ per transaction.