Mapping routes could provide you advantages in various situations, particularly in your workplace. Most of the time, anyone could do this with a route planner usually offered to Android users.
Fortunately, an iPhone route planner has also been released to the public. Yet, given that iPhones could be confusing to use, we’ve provided these simples steps to start you on your ride:
Step 1: Open the app
Once you’ve downloaded your route planner app, the first thing you would’ve to do is open the app and tap on the “Route” section that’s available for viewing in the navigation menu. Then click on the “Add New Route” button before selecting the “Set Brand New Route” to input your desired location.
After that, you’ll be sent to the “Route Settings” screen, where you’ll need to fill in the “Route Name” area with your desired name for the route you’ve chosen.
Just be sure not to forget to fill up the “Route Schedule” section, where you’ll need to input the set date and time for the route.
Step 2: Choose the optimization type
In this section, you have a few options to choose from depending on the optimization type you’re looking for.
For instance, the “Lock Last Destination” optimization allows you to optimize a sequence of stops or routes while ensuring that the end route would be on the last uploaded stop or the current inputted address.
Of course, you’re free to use the “Roundtrip” option to optimize the sequence of stops where it starts and ends at the same address.
Meanwhile, the “End Anywhere” option adjusts your route or sequence of stops while automatically picking the most optimal and efficient stop in ending the whole route.
On the other hand, you’re also at liberty to disable the “Roundtrip” or “End Anywhere” optimizations if you deem necessary.
When presented with the “Optimization for” section, you’ll be able to choose among the “Shortest Time,” “Shortest Time with Current Traffic,” or the “Shortest Distance.”
According to your business’ needs or model, you could choose between a “Travel Mode” of driving or walking. So if your company has assigned delivery riders, it’s likely that you would pick the driving/vehicle optimization.
Step 3: Input the address
In finishing the setup, you must adjust the route’s settings before including the required addresses. Once you’ve completed this, you’d have to tap on the “Done” button at the screen’s top right corner. Next, you’re going to visit the “Set Your Departure Address” to indicate any stops within the route plan.
In manually adding the addresses, you’d have to select the “Add New” button under the “Add Address” section. Later, you will need to input a partial or the full address in the “Address” area, then introduced to select among the set of recommended geocoded or suggested variants accordingly.
Following this, you have an option to add an alias for the address to the corresponding field, then adapt the route to your preferred “Service Time” and complete the process by tapping the “Add” button.
If you think that you’ll constantly use this address, consider including it in your favorites. Under this section, you’ll be able to view the saved addresses from the “Select from Favorites” option.
Once your route has been optimized, it’ll be available in the “Synced” field on the “Route” screen. At this point, you can view this on-screen and navigate through the in-app voice-guided navigation. Or another third-party navigation app like Apple Maps.
When you optimize your route, you get to plan all of your transactions and design the rest of your route operations. By doing so, you’re solving both the Vehicle Route Problem (VRP) and Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) without the need for manual calculations.
