RouteOptimiser.com from Postcode Anywhere Announces Even Faster Route-Planning
Smart route-planning service calculates 50 times longer routes, in a fraction of the time
Worcester, United Kingdom, June 23, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Smart route-planning service Route Optimiser announces an improvement to its underlying route optimisation algorithm this week.
The changes mean that hauliers, couriers and travelling field sales engineers can now plot more complex routes, faster. The waypoint limit has been raised by a factor of 50, from 200 to 10,000. The calculation speed has also increased, with the browser-based software now capable of calculating an optimal journey across 1,000 waypoints in approximately one minute.
Route Optimiser’s lead developer Richard Geary said: “This exciting announcement significantly enhances what Route Optimiser has to offer. As routes get increasingly complicated, they get exponentially more difficult to calculate. Think of a journey where you have to visit five places: there are actually 120 possible ways to travel this route. It’s more difficult than you might think to find the shortest or fastest one, even though we could have a fair shot at it. But if we double the number of places we have to visit to ten, the number of possible routes rises to 3.6 million! For fifteen waypoints – still a small number – it reaches an impossible 1.3 billion route options.
“With so many possibilities, it’s clear that finding a good route cannot be done accurately with pins and a map, and even using a computer, it takes up vast amounts of processing power. Previously, Route Optimiser could comfortably give you a nice short route across around 200 waypoints, which is an impressive achievement. But we knew we could do better… and thanks to our algorithm improvements, it can now manage 10,000!
“Calculation speeds have also improved. The new algorithm now takes approximately a minute to calculate an average optimal route with 1,000 waypoints. But even more significantly, although the problem gets exponentially more complex with every waypoint you add, it doesn’t take exponentially longer to calculate. So it would take only two minutes to plan a route with 2,000 waypoints, and only three minutes to plan a route with 3,000.
“We think these improvements should help anyone who has to manage very large fleets, or multiple field sales engineers. Now they can get the same time-and-money-saving advantages from Route Optimiser as everyone else.”
Route Optimiser is a product from software and services company Postcode Anywhere. The company’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The value of being able to rapidly and automatically plan better routes cannot be underestimated. With route optimisation technology, anyone who has the tedious job of managing complex delivery or appointment schedules can now plan better routes in a fraction of the time.
“But this is about more than reduced vehicle wear-and-tear, faster routes and lower fuel consumption. What’s invaluable is how significantly you can increase business efficiency, free up yours and your drivers’ time, and with features such as ETA timeslots, improve customer satisfaction. This algorithm modification is a definite complement to our last improvement, a new capability allowing users to download routes to their TomToms and other supported satnav devices.”
Across a large number of waypoints, Route Optimiser is designed to provide routes for multiple vehicles, with a maximum limit of 500 waypoints per vehicle. Route planning time is variable and dependent on a number of factors. For more information on Route Optimiser, please visit the website at www.routeoptimiser.com. The company currently offers a free 30-day trial of its smart route-planning service.
###
Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
jim@postcodeanywhere.com
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf
Notes to Editors:
About Postcode Anywhere
Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operations of over 8,000 organisations worldwide. Best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software, the company offers a range of data-driven services, including route planning, customer profiling and bank account validation. It is now the fastest-growing reseller of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) and the market leader for online address auto-fill. A multi-award-winning organisation, it has also appeared in Deloitte’s European fast-growth technology company list for three years running. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com. For more information about its smart, browser-based route planning software, visit www.RouteOptimiser.com
Recent Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere
• Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008/9, 2009/10 & 2010/11
• Red Herring Top 100 Europe - 2010
• Best Small IT Supplier of the Year - UK IT Industry Awards (finalist) – 2009
• Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) – 2009
• Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
• Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
• Growth Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
• Small Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
• Customer Service Team of the Year (finalist) - National Customer Services Awards 2008
The changes mean that hauliers, couriers and travelling field sales engineers can now plot more complex routes, faster. The waypoint limit has been raised by a factor of 50, from 200 to 10,000. The calculation speed has also increased, with the browser-based software now capable of calculating an optimal journey across 1,000 waypoints in approximately one minute.
Route Optimiser’s lead developer Richard Geary said: “This exciting announcement significantly enhances what Route Optimiser has to offer. As routes get increasingly complicated, they get exponentially more difficult to calculate. Think of a journey where you have to visit five places: there are actually 120 possible ways to travel this route. It’s more difficult than you might think to find the shortest or fastest one, even though we could have a fair shot at it. But if we double the number of places we have to visit to ten, the number of possible routes rises to 3.6 million! For fifteen waypoints – still a small number – it reaches an impossible 1.3 billion route options.
“With so many possibilities, it’s clear that finding a good route cannot be done accurately with pins and a map, and even using a computer, it takes up vast amounts of processing power. Previously, Route Optimiser could comfortably give you a nice short route across around 200 waypoints, which is an impressive achievement. But we knew we could do better… and thanks to our algorithm improvements, it can now manage 10,000!
“Calculation speeds have also improved. The new algorithm now takes approximately a minute to calculate an average optimal route with 1,000 waypoints. But even more significantly, although the problem gets exponentially more complex with every waypoint you add, it doesn’t take exponentially longer to calculate. So it would take only two minutes to plan a route with 2,000 waypoints, and only three minutes to plan a route with 3,000.
“We think these improvements should help anyone who has to manage very large fleets, or multiple field sales engineers. Now they can get the same time-and-money-saving advantages from Route Optimiser as everyone else.”
Route Optimiser is a product from software and services company Postcode Anywhere. The company’s managing director Guy Mucklow said: “The value of being able to rapidly and automatically plan better routes cannot be underestimated. With route optimisation technology, anyone who has the tedious job of managing complex delivery or appointment schedules can now plan better routes in a fraction of the time.
“But this is about more than reduced vehicle wear-and-tear, faster routes and lower fuel consumption. What’s invaluable is how significantly you can increase business efficiency, free up yours and your drivers’ time, and with features such as ETA timeslots, improve customer satisfaction. This algorithm modification is a definite complement to our last improvement, a new capability allowing users to download routes to their TomToms and other supported satnav devices.”
Across a large number of waypoints, Route Optimiser is designed to provide routes for multiple vehicles, with a maximum limit of 500 waypoints per vehicle. Route planning time is variable and dependent on a number of factors. For more information on Route Optimiser, please visit the website at www.routeoptimiser.com. The company currently offers a free 30-day trial of its smart route-planning service.
###
Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Manager, Postcode Anywhere
jim@postcodeanywhere.com
+44 (0) 1905 888 562
Press centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf
Notes to Editors:
About Postcode Anywhere
Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operations of over 8,000 organisations worldwide. Best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software, the company offers a range of data-driven services, including route planning, customer profiling and bank account validation. It is now the fastest-growing reseller of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) and the market leader for online address auto-fill. A multi-award-winning organisation, it has also appeared in Deloitte’s European fast-growth technology company list for three years running. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com. For more information about its smart, browser-based route planning software, visit www.RouteOptimiser.com
Recent Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere
• Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008/9, 2009/10 & 2010/11
• Red Herring Top 100 Europe - 2010
• Best Small IT Supplier of the Year - UK IT Industry Awards (finalist) – 2009
• Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) – 2009
• Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
• Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
• Growth Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
• Small Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
• Customer Service Team of the Year (finalist) - National Customer Services Awards 2008
Contact
Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams
+44 (0)1905 888 562
www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk
Jim Williams
+44 (0)1905 888 562
www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk
Contact
Categories