Time-Wise Routing For Field Services

This white paper from TOA Technologies provides a comparison of three routing methodologies which shows that a time-based approach yields the most reliable schedules and greatest efficiencies.

How do you schedule your morning commute – by distance, or by time?

Let’s say you use Google Maps to plot the route from your home to your workplace. The software presents the best option as a 17.5-mile route on a combination of freeways and surface streets, taking an estimated 30 minutes. If you need to arrive at work at 8 a.m., then you set the alarm for 7:30, right?

Of course not. You would arrive late every day, because your schedule doesn’t account for getting dressed, eating breakfast or doing any of the other routines that make up a typical morning. You probably wouldn’t keep your job very long.

And yet, that’s exactly how most automated management software routes and schedules jobs for field service personnel. It also explains why a mobile employee’s daily schedule typically turns into a pipedream by mid-morning.

Routing methodology – the procedure for plotting a path from point A to point B and estimating the travel time – profoundly affects scheduling for field service personnel. Overestimates of travel time sap workforce productivity by scheduling too few jobs per worker per day. Underestimates have similarly disastrous consequences: late arrivals, angry customers and increasingly disrupted schedules as the day wears on, necessitating costly overtime or the employment of expensive contractors. In many respects, the key to mobile workforce optimization lies in accurately assessing travel times for multiple routes between multiple appointments.

To read more about the different types of routing methodologies and why the time-based approach yields the most reliable schedules, download this white paper now!