Planning sustainable routes with different vehicles

For example, in light of EU climate targets, the need to drive electric vehicles is becoming increasingly urgent. This means you'll soon have to make deliveries with different types of vehicles. You won't be able to enter the city with a diesel bus anymore; you'll need to use an electric vehicle or a bicycle there. The diesel bus is better suited for rural areas where you cover longer distances. But how do you then plan your routes efficiently? What choices do you need to make when driving different types of vehicles? We'll delve into that further in this article.

'Want' versus 'Must'

If you drive more sustainably, you'll encounter wanting and needing. Between wanting and needing there's a clear difference. Because many sustainable measures won't take effect until 2025, sustainable driving currently seems optional. In other words, you don't have to do anything yet. But is that what you want? If you've embraced the sustainability aspect within your company, then you want to drive more sustainably, right? Then you want to use those polluters only when you have to drive long distances. In short, the choice for efficiency isn't always obvious. Sometimes you consciously choose sustainability and not purely efficiency. This naturally leads to the next question: if you choose sustainability, how do you account for it in your planning?

Efficiency versus sustainability

The investment in electric vehicles is not insignificant. Electric delivery vans – however sustainable – are many times more expensive than 'normal' delivery vans. Now that you've made that investment, you're determined to deploy your new vehicles. But your planning indicates that you can drive routes more efficiently by using two diesel buses. Here again, you face a choice: do you opt for the cheapest kilometers (read: efficiency) or do you choose sustainability? Perhaps you'll go for both? And how do you then arrive at a good plan? The current algorithms of route planning systems are often 'flat' in their orientation. This means that the systems primarily look at time and kilometers, thereby calculating the cheapest routes. If you want to make sustainable choices, you'll need to define sustainability. Often, sustainability is expressed in terms of CO2 emissions. But other considerations can play a role in sustainable choices, such as opting for an openly sustainable image. This can, in turn, lead to a seemingly 'illogical choice' for deploying ten 'less efficient' bicycles with a sustainable appearance, while you might expect the choice of an efficient electric car. But whatever the definition, incorporating sustainability into planning is a prerequisite for achieving efficient planning with a mix of vehicles.

Flat versus complex planning

So there are situations where you choose sustainability rather than efficiency. If you incorporate sustainability into your planning, you'll arrive at different choices. You might already know that using two diesel buses leads to an efficient route with the lowest costs. You also know how much your sustainable choice to use an electric vehicle costs. Ideally, you calculate this per individual stop. How to do that, you can read in our previous blog. The difference in cost per individual stop is the price you pay for sustainability. However, by driving sustainably, you can continue to deliver in cities in the future, where you might even make more deliveries. What's more, if you plan with sustainability as a factor, you'll also discover how to deploy your bicycles more efficiently. You might even find that some delivery areas are no longer profitable for you at all. In short: considerations regarding efficiency and sustainability lead to new choices! What choice will you make to prepare for a sustainable future?