New routing engine with materially improved optimization logic across all service models, plus four targeted bug fixes spanning the Driver App, Rider App, and reporting.
This newest routing upgrade is powered by an industry-proven optimization algorithm used across various industries to optimize vehicle fleet utilization. Given all the trips, it finds the best route that maximizes trips served, minimizes miles driven, and minimizes vehicles used.
The engine takes a high-level view of routing, evaluating hundreds to thousands of potential routes to find the most optimal one that serves as many trips as possible. The previous engine handled trips one-by-one, which could result in unexpectedly unservable trips and inefficient routes.
When vehicle resources are constrained, the engine can strategically drop specific harder or longer trips in order to serve a greater number of other trips.
Route miles and vehicle usage are actively optimized within the routing solution, resulting in better vehicle utilization, fewer total miles driven, less deadhead, and more shared miles between passengers.
When it makes sense, the engine can instruct drivers to arrive early and wait at stops, as an alternative to inefficient movement between stops in a zigzag pattern.
Given sufficient time, the engine always arrives at an optimal solution and confirms this internally. Time limits are configured to adapt to each customer's use case and can be adjusted as needed. For route adjustments, the existing route is provided as a starting point to accelerate the solution.
Previously all-or-nothing, the operation either worked for every trip or failed entirely. As of v1.0.5, this operation succeeds if it can add at least one new trip without disturbing existing assignments. Mid-route additions are significantly more reliable as a result.
We've received feedback about prioritizing first-come-first-served when vehicle capacity is limited, optimizing for shared miles, and prioritizing ADA passengers. While those aren't available yet, this new routing engine is the foundation for adapting routing to customers' specific needs.
This engine is best suited for organizations that require trip bookings at least 30 minutes in advance, route riders to or from specific points of interest as pickup or drop-off points, and have Request Buffer Time (Early) configured in their organization settings. This setting allows the engine to schedule a rider's pickup or arrival up to X minutes earlier than their requested time, giving the engine more room to group riders and build efficient routes.
The Advanced Routing Engine is not automatically enabled for existing organizations. It will be introduced carefully to avoid any disruption to active services. If your organization fits the above criteria, reach out to learn more about enabling it.
Organizations with Manual or Location-Optimized routing enabled in their organization settings will not see any benefit from this new engine.
Fixed a distance calculation bug affecting organizations routing across state lines.
Fixed an issue preventing Google Maps navigation in the Driver App on routes with more than 25 waypoints.
Fixed a bug causing rider QR codes in boarding passes and text messages to occasionally display the wrong rider's code. Previously printed boarding passes should be reprinted.
Fixed a bug causing the Route Path report to not display all recorded vehicle locations.