ODL Live now supports park and loop route optimisation.

For e-commerce deliveries in dense urban areas, it can be more efficient (and better for the environment, C02 reduction, fitness, etc) for the driver to park, deliver to multiple nearby stops on-foot, then return back to their parked truck and drive to the next set of nearby stops. The parking spots function like mini-depots as the driver does a walking loop around them. In areas where parking is tricky, park-and-loop also reduces delivery times.

Our park-and-loop optimisation models traffic laws properly - when walking we can use pedestrian-only footpaths through the green spaces and go down one-way roads the ‘wrong’ way, but when driving we obviously can’t do either.

In the following screenshot, the driving route is in solid blue and the walking routes in dotted green. The walking route (stops 1-12) saves time by cutting through parks and at one point going down a one-way road the ‘wrong’ way. This is a nice example of ‘intelligent routing’ features that arise naturally in the route, just by modelling the underlying traffic laws properly and letting the route optimiser do its job.