Our wide-ranging routing module helps you to find the best route for your vehicle.

Overview

The routing module offers you the possibility to route between multiple destinations and find the best route. You can use a pre-defined routing profile or set a variety of routing options by yourself. Besides standard functions like setting a departure time, there are a lot more functions which especially come in handy on truck routing or special transports. For example you can set the size of your vehicle, its load or restrictions. To use all functions you need to have unlocked the module Truck routing. You can use the routing module without it, but you won't be able to use all its functions.

Routes which have been planned can be saved and assigned to vehicles. Do you have routes that you drive regularly? Then it might be useful to save them as a preset. This allows the driver to start it at any time on the display. The route will be used exactly like you planned it. This is especially useful for special transports like e.g. heavy haulage, which have to take a pre-defined route.

Routing profiles

A routing profile is a group of routing options, like e.g. the size and weight of the vehicles, its emission class, information about its load or which kind of streets it's allowed to take. YellowFox offers a set of pre-defined profiles. Of course you can also define your own profiles or alter the existing ones.

Create a routing profile

To create a routing profile, click on the gear symbol next to the profile selection in the tab "Planning". A dialog will open. On the left side you will see all routing profiles which are available. This includes the profiles which were pre-defined by YellowFox, but also your custom ones. To edit a profile, simply click on it. To create a new one, just click on the Button "Create new routing profile". Now you will see the values of the selected profile on the right side. Each profile has a name and a variety of routing options. These influence how the route is calculated. For example the size or load of your vehicle might alter the available routes. At vehicle assignment you can assign the profile to a vehicle. It will be used on doing a distance request for the vehicle. Vehicles which do not have an assigned profile, will use the companies default profile. You can set here which profile will be the default profile.

Click on "save changes" to submit your changes. You can not directly alter the pre-defined profiles, but you can save a copy of them.

Use a routing profile

The routing module uses the companies default profile by default. You can set this at adminsitration → map → map setting or in the profile management. While doing a routing, you can change the profile at any time. Open the routing options to see all values and maybe alter them. Changes during routing will not be saved to the profile, but can help you to quickly check how other parameters change your results. For example you could test if the route will change if your load is a bit  heavier.

Delete a routing profile

To delete a profile, you have to open the profile management again. Use the action menu at each profile to delete it. Pre-defined profiles can not be removed. 

Plan a new route

To plan a new route, you need to set the destinations first. You can define up to 50 destinations for one route. Enter the address at top left of the module. Press enter to confirm or select the address from the autocomplete by clicking on it or using the arrow keys. The destination will immediately  be drawn on the map. As soon as you have entered at least 2 destinations, the route will be calculated and displayed. Every destination also has an address book symbol behind it. Click on it to load an address from the address book.

Use routing options to optimize your route. You can define when your route should start or end. By default the route will be calculated as if you would start right now. Furthermore you can decide if you want to use traffic information or not. If you enable "Use traffic information", the calculation will note current traffic jams, constructions and so on. If you also enable "Use historical traffic information", historical and statistical information will be used as well. An example for such information is that during rush hour in metropolitan areas there is a high chance for more traffic than during other times of the day. Please note that the routing will take considerably longer if you include these information due to the large amount of data. Finally you need to decide which routing profile you want to use and possibly alter it by changing the values of routing options. Click on "Calculate route" to calculate it again after changing routing options.

To optimize the order of your destinations, click on "Optimize route". This will re-order the destinations based on their distances to each other. If you need the start or end of your route to be fixed, you can click on the lock symbol next to the destinations. By doing so, these will definetly stay in place during optimization. To use optimization, you need to have booked the module Truck routing or be using the PTV map material. 

Results of routing

As soon as the route has been calculated, you will see the results on the right side of the module. You can see how long the route will take, how far it is and which costs you have to expect. All these values will also be splitted on the individual countries as well as sections of your route. The results show a selected set of values, to get more information click on "Show details" at the section block.

Route comparison

There is a possibility to compare already driven routes to your planned route. After planning your route, you can select a vehicle for comparison on the right side. Set which timerange should be checked and click on "Start comparison". The route of the vehicle will be displayed in orange on the map. Furthermore you can see the driven distance and duration. They will be compared to your planning results. This helps you to easily check if your driver was faster or slower than your planned route.

Export

You can export a planned route as PDF. Click on the export symbol on top-right of module. For export you need to decide which kind of information you want to export. These include the map itself, the total results, the section results, the route comparison as well as the used routing options. Furthermore you can also export turn-by-turn directions. Like in a road book, this will give you detailled analogue directions to hand out to your driver.