Why Manual Route Planning Is Costing You Money (And How to Fix It)

Let's do the maths. You have 40 deliveries today. You spend 20 minutes in the morning looking at addresses, grouping neighbourhoods, and mentally mapping your route. Multiply that by 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year: that's 83 hours annually spent planning routes while NOT getting paid. At AUD $16/hour, that's AUD $1,328 of unpaid labour per year—just planning.

But the planning time is actually the smallest cost. The real bleeding happens in execution.

The Extra Mileage Problem

Research from logistics firms shows that manual route planning—even by experienced drivers—results in 10-25% more miles driven than the optimal route. That's not a guess. It's mathematically proven.

If you cover 120 km daily, an extra 10-25% is 12-30 km of unnecessary driving. Over a 250-working-day year, that's 3,000-7,500 extra km.

At AUD $0.90 per km in fuel and vehicle costs, that's AUD $2,700-6,750 of unnecessary expenses annually.

The Time Problem

Those extra kilometers take extra time. If you're driving an extra 20 km per day at an average speed of 30 km/h (accounting for traffic), that's an additional 40 minutes of driving daily. For a stop-rate of AUD $1.30 per delivery, that's lost earnings of AUD $1.30 × 3 extra deliveries (that 40 minutes could've gotten you 3 more stops) = AUD $3.90 daily.

Over a year: AUD $3.90 × 250 days = AUD $975 in lost earnings just from wasted driving time.

The Backtracking Problem

When you mentally plan a route, you often miss obvious inefficiencies. You might deliver to Stop A, then Stop B across town, then realize Stop C (between A and B) should've been hit in between. Now you're backtracking.

A route optimization algorithm examines every possible sequence and identifies the absolute shortest path. Drivers? We're pattern-matching with incomplete information.

The Stress Problem

Manual planning creates mental fatigue. You're constantly second-guessing your route decisions: "Should I have gone north first?" "Is there a faster way?" This cognitive load burns mental energy that could be spent on customer service or safe driving. Stressed drivers also make riskier decisions (speeding, rushing) to "catch up."

Real Example: The Numbers Don't Lie

Route optimization software doesn't just plan better routes—it solves a mathematical problem called the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). This is a centuries-old optimization puzzle that computers are genuinely good at.

What the Algorithm Considers:

• ✓ Every possible sequence of stops (millions of combinations)
• ✓ Real-time traffic data (not assumptions)
• ✓ Time windows (pick-up hours, delivery time constraints)
• ✓ Vehicle capacity and load constraints
• ✓ Road restrictions (toll roads, truck bans, one-ways)
• ✓ Your specific driving patterns and preferences

A human brain, no matter how experienced, cannot hold all this information at once. Your brain is great at many things. Solving complex optimization problems isn't one of them.

"But I know my area like the back of my hand. I know which roads are blocked on Thursdays, where the speed cameras are, which neighborhoods are dangerous at night, and where I can park easily."

This is valuable. But here's the thing: route optimization software doesn't ignore this knowledge. It integrates it.

The best route planners let you:

• Add custom notes to every stop ("Aggressive dog—leave at gate")
• Mark preferred routes and avoid certain roads
• Exclude time windows for high-crime areas
• Set preferred parking locations
• Input your own speed and safety preferences

You're not replacing your expertise. You're giving it a computational partner that handles the heavy math lifting.

If you're still planning routes manually, you're working harder than you need to. Your local knowledge is valuable, but it's not designed to solve complex mathematical optimisation problems—and that's exactly what route sequencing is.

Route optimisation software doesn't make you less of an expert in your area. It makes you a more efficient one. It takes the computational heavy lifting off your plate so you can focus on what you do best: knowing the territory and making deliveries.

The question isn't whether route optimisation can help you work more efficiently. It's whether you can afford to keep losing time and money to manual planning when there's a better way.