Route optimization system delivering 17% efficiency improvement across 82-vehicle fleet
Key results
Route efficiency improvement
+17% (km per delivery)
Fuel cost reduction
−14% in first 6 months
On-time delivery performance
78% → 91%
Dispatcher planning time
2.5 hours → 35 minutes/day
Estimated 3-year ROI
8.2x
Problem
Translink Mediterranean operated a fleet of 82 vehicles serving approximately 340 daily delivery points across the western Mediterranean region. Route planning was performed manually by a team of 6 dispatchers using basic mapping tools, a process that typically required 2-3 hours each morning and produced routes that experienced drivers frequently modified in the field.
Fuel costs represented 34% of total operational costs. On-time delivery performance was at 78%, below the 85% contractual threshold with key clients — triggering penalty clauses that cost approximately €180,000 annually.
The dispatchers were highly experienced and had deep local knowledge, but the manual process couldn't scale to handle the full complexity of the routing problem: time window constraints, vehicle type compatibility, driver working hours regulations and real-time traffic conditions.
Approach
The optimization system was built in three phases.
Phase 1 focused on data infrastructure: establishing clean, real-time feeds of order data, vehicle availability, and driver schedules, and geocoding all 340+ delivery points with high precision. Data quality issues identified in this phase — inconsistent address formats, missing time windows for several client accounts — were resolved before any optimization work began.
- Hard and soft time window constraints per delivery point
- Vehicle capacity and type restrictions (refrigerated vs. standard)
- Driver working hours regulations
- Real-time traffic integration for dynamic re-routing during the day
Phase 3 focused on organizational integration: training dispatchers to work with the system as decision support rather than replacement, establishing override protocols with automatic logging, and building management dashboards for real-time fleet monitoring.
Solution & Delivery
The final system generates optimized route plans in under 4 minutes for the full daily route set. Dispatchers interact with a web interface showing proposed routes with key metrics (estimated time, distance, load factor), and can apply override rules that are automatically logged for performance analysis.
Dynamic re-routing capabilities allow for real-time route adjustments during the day when unexpected events occur — traffic incidents, failed delivery attempts, late order additions.