5 ways to improve your transportation operations

Whenever a company makes deliveries or provides home services, reducing operational time permits arriving on time. That’s why you need the best tools to optimize your transportation operations. Here, we’ll share some essential tips for planning routes effectively and the recommendation of our last-mile software, Delego.

What is a transportation route?

A transportation route involves three steps: departure, travel, and arrival. Although this may seem straightforward, it is often affected by various issues that companies address to make the route effective and safe.

Optimizing the transportation route is key to ensuring customer satisfaction and cultivating repeat business. In this regard, companies should consider a variety of factors, such as travel expenses, fleet utilization, and the total distance to be covered.

Therefore, it is essential to have strategies in place to mitigate fuel consumption by shortening routes disrupted by traffic congestion or adverse weather conditions. This proactive approach will help you achieve greater scalability in their operations.

Steps to plan a transportation route

To optimize the transportation routes, you need to implement strategies that improve the efficiency of the journeys. Here are the steps to ensure that products or services arrive at their destinations on time:

1. Identify customer needs: understanding how urgently customers need certain products or services will help you organize routes better. For services, you can prioritize routes based on urgency. Consider geographic proximity, order sequence, or other relevant criteria.

   
   

2. Fleet management: you need to manage your resources effectively. For example, the vehicle size determines how many products it can carry and the fuel levels required for the routes.

   
   

3. Consider distances: to ensure timely deliveries, it's best if transports cover routes as quickly as possible. Proximity is crucial here. Shorter trips mean vehicles use less fuel, which helps reduce operational costs.

   
   

4. Calculate the total time for operations: the trip is not the only factor to consider when calculating the time for each activity. Loading and unloading times can vary if multiple products are delivered or depending on their weight. 

   
   

5. Staff training: knowing how to drive a vehicle is not just important. Drivers and staff delivering products or services must be trained to perform their tasks effectively.

   
   

6. Coordination and communication: the company must oversee all tasks to coordinate and adjust them as needed. Additionally, it should be able to communicate any route changes to staff immediately.

Signs of a flawed transportation route

You know your routes aren’t working when you encounter some of these issues:

• You receive complaints from dissatisfied customers.

• You’re losing clients.

• You’re spending too much on fuel.

• Deliveries are late, or products arrive in poor condition.

• Common route problems become significant obstacles.

• You take too long to manage resources.

Tips for an efficient transportation route

There are five key aspects that any company aiming to be competitive in logistics should consider:

1. Fleet management

There are several factors to consider when managing your vehicle fleet. For example, the more cargo a vehicle carries, the more trips it can make. However, it needs to cover greater distances and use more fuel. For this reason, compare the different aspects of your vehicles for effective management.

Consider the weight each vehicle can carry, the number of stops it needs to make, the unloading requirements at each stop, and the distance each vehicle travels. Additionally, organize deliveries so that the last items to be delivered are at the back and the first ones are at the front to avoid wasting time searching for products.

2. Route planning

If routes are well-organized, your deliveries are more likely to be efficient. Plan routes based on the number of vehicles in the fleet, destinations, distances between them, the cargo, and permitted delivery times. Also, consider any construction or adverse weather conditions that might disrupt traffic and hinder routes.

In this context, transportation route software can quickly organize the most efficient routes by inputting fleet and delivery data. In this way, resource management is more competitive.

3. Real-Time trip tracking

Any logistics company must consider that various obstacles can arise during operations, affecting trip efficiency: unexpected weather conditions like heavy rain, traffic accidents, or vehicle issues. However, customers can’t wait while you resolve these problems.

To optimize your operations, you must be able to adjust routes in real time. Addressing the issue, resolving it, communicating with the driver to change the route, and making the change can take time. Last-mile software helps to instantly organize vehicle routes and arrive on time.

4. Communicate at all times

Effective communication is important for smooth transportation management. Being able to send notifications to your team and customers is vital for staying competitive.

Last-mile software lets you integrate communication tools into websites, apps, and internal systems. It enables you to send alerts and set up chat windows for constant updates.

5. Using software to optimize your deliveries

Organizing transportation routes involves significant resource management. However, handling large amounts of data about destinations, departure points, traffic, and other factors can lead to errors.

Using smart tools is essential to ensure timely deliveries. The software can store all shipping information and organize routes in minutes, considering delivery distances, traffic conditions, and weather. Advanced options even allow real-time route adjustments. In this regard, our last-mile software, Delego, stands out as the top choice on the market.

Delego: the last-mile software to optimize transportation management

With cutting-edge technology, you can manage all company operations efficiently. Visit our website for more information on our software Delego and try a free demo to see how it works.