Reducing costs and making routes that delivery drivers want to stick to

Delivery drivers don’t stick to their pre-defined stop sequence when their navigation tools don’t include traffic data at the early planning stage, because they often must navigate unexpected hold ups and challenging road conditions. Clemens Beckmann founder of Greenplan, now part of EPG, set out to solve this, with the help of TomTom traffic.

When Clemens Beckmann led the research and development department at delivery giants DHL at its headquarters in Bonn, Germany, he noticed a thorny problem. Most routes for delivery drivers were calculated first and then adjusted for traffic later. The result? Drivers often ignored the route, forced to adapt it to avoid getting stuck in congestion.

Watch Greenplan’s Clemens Beckmann and TomTom’s Renu Jinturkar explain

“The main pain point that we saw was that drivers did not stick to the planned routes as the plan would lead them into traffic jams,” Beckmann said. That was 10 years ago. In the time since, Beckmann has worked with colleagues to create an algorithm that calculates delivery routes taking traffic into consideration from the outset. It considers, the typical time it takes between delivery stops depending on the time of day and the expected levels of congestion at that time.

Indeed, Renu Jinturkar, Product Marketing Manager and fleet and logistics market expert at TomTom says, fleet and logistics is not just about making delivers, but about navigating uncertainties.

Asking the experts

To do it, Beckmann needed some additional expert help. He turned to the mathematicians at The Research Institute of Discrete Mathematics at the University of Bonn, and to TomTom, as the ideal provider of traffic data. He founded Greenplan, now part of logistics software provider EPG. The team decided to take all transport management systems from the same provider. Using TomTom traffic across the board meant the company could avoid information gaps and data inconsistencies.

With Greenplan, the University of Bonn and TomTom, Beckmann developed an algorithm that plans routes using traffic data from the beginning, and not as an afterthought. It considers details such as lane closures, construction works, historic traffic patterns and other obstacles that can cause city streets to grind to a halt.

“We do get the explicit feedback from drivers of various customers that they feel the routes for their districts were made by someone who knows their districts,” Beckmann said. Now that routes are calculated with traffic information incorporated, drivers are far more likely to stick to the stop sequence, resulting in a higher ratio of on-time deliveries and improved cost savings for the fleet operator.

There were other advantages to using TomTom traffic data, too. It includes information that some other providers don’t have, such as road restrictions for trucks and information on bridge heights and maximum allowed weight. Beckmann said the speed profiles on TomTom are also more accurate than that of other providers, getting updates every five minutes as opposed to every 20 minutes. All of these details add up, allowing EPG to give drivers more accurate, safer routes, relevant for their vehicle fleets — the success rates of routes improved significantly.

Big bottom-line boost

Equipped with highly accurate, up-to-the-minute traffic data that includes historical trends and patterns, world-beating algorithms and detailed map material from TomTom, EPG can get drivers to more delivery stops in less time — the holy grail for delivery companies. As TomTom Traffic is updated every 30 seconds, the need for deliveries to be re-routed was dramatically decreased. Drivers adhere to the route they are given, because they know they can trust it.

All of which makes for happy customers, too. EPG said that its fleet operator customers get a return on their investment within six months, and report savings of up to 35%. Because vehicles make fewer stops, they are being used more efficiently – and that means they have a chance to reduce their overall emissions. ETAs are more accurate, so EPG can help retailers keep their own customers happy as their goods arrive when they expect them.

“None of our competitors are able to process the traffic data during the route creation like EPG does,” said Beckmann. This has not only solved a conundrum that had bothered him for years, but it has given EPG a significant competitive advantage.

Award-winning deliveries

Such are its achievements, EPG has been recognized in a scientific paper for both cost-efficiency and quality, in the way that its algorithm gets drivers to more stops during the same time and manages to deliver more parcels on time overall. But this is not the only recognition the company has received.

“Thanks to TomTom’s speed profiles and the unique way we are processing them, our lead researcher and his team were able to win the Amazon Last Mile Challenge in 2021,” Beckmann said.

“Our solution won the WSA prize from the United Nations in 2023, … Best Product at LogiMAT [logistics trade fair] in 2023, and we were selected as one of the few providers for Gartner’s Vehicle Routing and Scheduling Report 2023.”

While EPG helps logistics firms deliver consistently, EPG itself consistently delivers innovations. EPG has developed a front-end app used by dispatchers which includes updates from TomTom Traffic every 30 seconds. The app, known as Execution, allows EPG customers to monitor, adapt and plan their own routes.

“With this, the dispatcher in front of the screen can manage their routes, adjust where necessary, and inform drivers and recipients of any changes. The close to real-time traffic data from TomTom enables our dispatchers to act fast to real-life events, adding another advantage to our offering,” Beckmann said.

And with such technology, delivery companies, fleets and more can better navigate the uncertainties that come part and parcel of their daily work.