Top 8 Fleet Routing Software for Efficient Routing in 2024 (Updated List)

keyKey Takeaways:
  • Fleet routing software can help you optimize your routes to minimize the time and distance it takes to cover stops, reducing fuel consumption and vehicle wear/tear to minimize operational costs.
  • Tracking optimized routes can also help predict and convey more accurate ETAs and align your deliveries or service appointments with them. This can enhance your customers’ satisfaction, build loyalty, and boost repeat business.
  • A few popular fleet routing software solutions include Upper, OptimoRoute, Circuit, Roue4Me, Tookan, WorkWave Route Manager, and GeoTab.
  • When choosing fleet routing software, look for features like real-time tracking, customizable routing options, and data analytics.

Fleet routing has never been a walk in the park. From creating routes for your deliveries or service appointments to tracking their real-time progress and ensuring on-time completion, it can all turn overwhelming at times.

And that doesn’t end here.

Factors like soaring fuel costs, shortage of drivers, and unpredictable market shifts make modern-day fleet management even more complex. 

But worry not—there’s a solution to overcome all these challenges. And that’s fleet routing software. Whether you want to optimize and auto-assign your routes, reduce your fuel costs, or maximize your overall performance, fleet routing software can help you achieve it all.

The global fleet management software market projected to grow to a whopping $79.82 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 19% is testimony to the rising demand for efficient fleet routing solutions.

However, choosing the right fleet routing software is also important to maximize your fleet routing efficiency.  

If you are looking for the best fleet routing solutions for your business, you have come to the right place.

This blog reviews the 8 best fleet routing software, enlists their key features, and enumerates pros and cons to help you make an informed choice.

How We Reviewed and Selected the Best Fleet Routing Software?

A thorough evaluation to determine the criteria to review and rank fleet routing software preceded the compilation of this final list. A few of the criteria we decided to base our list are: 

  • Ease of installation and use
  • Features available
  • Accuracy and degree of customization  
  • Prices
  • Users’ reviews 

Our experts tested each option against the selection standards defined by fleet management veterans in-house. With this list of the best fleet routing software, we aim to deliver valuable insights to facilitate an informed choice and streamline your fleet routing. We have also considered Capterra for the ratings and reviews of this software.

What is Fleet Routing?

Fleet routing is the process of determining the most efficient routes for vehicles that need to visit a set of locations. It helps minimize overall transportation costs and improves fleet dispatching performance.

Moving ahead, let’s examine 8 prominent fleet routing software and how they differ in terms of features and prices.

Top 8 Fleet Routing Software To Check Out

1. Upper – Ideal for fleet management for all business sizes

Number of stops: Up to 500

Route optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Works on: Web and Android

Ideal for: Fleet companies and delivery/field service businesses

Upper is the ideal route planner that comes in handy to streamline your delivery or field service operations. The primary reason why Upper stands out is the advanced routing algorithms it leverages to create the most efficient routes for drivers or field service agents. 

If you are running last last-mile delivery business where you have to deliver packages or goods from one place to another, then Upper is the right solution for you. The software allows you to plan and optimize routes based on traffic, customers’ preferred time windows, distances of stops, and agents’ working hours. It’s easy ‘drag and drop’ functionality to change the sequence of stops based on priority changes without having to replan the entire route from scratch. 

Another most demanded feature is Proof of Delivery, which lets you maintain verifiable digital proof (images or customers’ signatures) of successful deliveries. This feature has your back if you want to minimize fake delivery attempts or customers’ false complaints regarding ‘undelivered’ items. However, your ability to use it may depend on internet stability at times. 

 Key Features: 

  1. Multi-stop route planning and optimization: It allows you to create optimal routes based on time-based constraints like traffic, drivers’ or technicians’ working hours, and customers’ preferred service or delivery time windows. You can also factor in delivery distances, real-time traffic data, and legal regulations like speed limits or curbside parking while optimizing your routes. 
  2. Route scheduling and dispatching: This tool enables you to create routes for multiple deliveries or service appointments months in advance and dispatch them to your field agents. This eliminates the need to notify them of upcoming jobs manually every time, reducing your workload and increasing your operational efficiency. 
  3. GPS tracking: Real-time visibility into your field staff’s movements helps you evaluate their progress, identify issues, and address them proactively. Using real-time GPS tracking, you can also accurately predict estimated times of arrival (ETAs) and take measures to align them with your customer’s expectations. 
  4. Dynamic customer notifications: It allows you to foresee and convey precise ETAs and delivery progress updates like “Out for Delivery” to your customers via email or text. These customer notifications pave the way to enhancing transparency and customer satisfaction levels.
  5. Report & Analytics: This software gives a comprehensive overview of the total number of tasks your delivery or service team performed per day, week, or month. You can also drill down to an individual delivery driver or technician to evaluate their performance based on their total stops covered or missed. These insights can help you course of action to improve your fleet productivity.
  6. Open API Integration: Seamlessly integrates with your existing business systems like Enterprise Resource Planning or Customer Relationship Management to manage incoming order volumes efficiently through optimized routes. 

One-liner verdict: Best for your fleet routing management in case you have a stable internet connection.

Pricing: 

  • Essentials: $80 per month for up to 3 users (billed annually)
  • Growth: $160 per month for up to 5 users (billed annually)
  • Enterprise: Contact Support Team
Pros
  • Drag and drop files for addresses
  • Last-minute changes and updates to routes
  • Budget-friendly packages
  • Offers free trial
  • Open API integration
Cons
  • Limited features in the Free version
  • Usage may depend on stable internet at times

Relying on Paper-Based Mapping or Excel Spreadsheets to Create and Manage Your Fleet Routes?

It’s time to step into the advanced route planning with Upper. Use its smart routing algorithms to optimize your fleet routes quickly and efficiently.

Not just that, experience the unparalleled agility as you can also:

  • Change your sequence of stops on the fly
  • Swap routes between drivers in emergencies
  • Add or remove stops based on priority changes
  • Bypass calls to auto-dispatch scheduled routes

2. Optimoroute 

Number of stops: Up to 700 in Lite and 1000 in Pro

Route optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Works on: Android, iOS, or Web

Ideal for: Organizing a mobile workforce

If you are looking to automate your route planning, OptimoRoute can be your go-to solution. We input multiple addresses and added delivery constraints, including the day day of the week, time windows, and vehicle type, to see how it plans routes. To our surprise, it not only created the most efficient routes but also allocated them to drivers based on their hours of service, distances of destinations, and skills. 

The freedom it gives to make last-minute route modifications is also worth considering. With the ability to plan routes for up to 5 weeks ahead of time in a single click, this route-planning software deserves the second spot. However, our test revealed two limitations: it could not accurately recognize some locations, especially rural delivery addresses, at times. Another observation was that the travel times it showed were different from those in Google Maps, causing discrepancies.

One-liner verdict: It’s best for automated route planning as long as most of your delivery addresses are not rural.

Key Features: 

  1. Live Tracking +  ETAs: Let you track your technicians’ or drivers’ progress to determine and convey accurate estimated times of arrival to your customers accordingly.
  2. Workload balancing: This enables you to balance the workload between your drivers or technicians while ensuring optimization. 
  3. Mobile app for drivers: This app equips your drivers or field technicians to view and manage their routes on the go.
  4. Pickup & delivery: This option lets you accommodate pickups and deliveries on the same route to create a hybrid workflow, reduce the number of trips, and decrease operational costs. 

Pricing:

  • Lite: $39 per driver/month
  • Pro: $49 per driver/month
  • Custom: Varies based on your unique needs
Pros
  • Higher cost-effectiveness over some other apps
  • Plan routes in advance for your delivery team
  • Easy to use software
  • Ability to add stops to routes in progress
Cons
  • No SMS notification for customers
  • No option for delivery verification
  • Can’t adjust routes easily using drag-and-drop interface

3. Circuit

Number of stops: Up to 5000 stops based on the plan and works on the pay-as-you-go model.

Route optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Works on: Android, iOS, Web

Best for: Couriers and online retailers

Circuit for Teams claims to be the most popular delivery software. It offers routing solutions customized for teams of drivers, individual delivery drivers, and package tracking. Whether you are a small retailer, large courier company, or enterprise owner, it caters to your routing needs. Taking control of your fleet operations becomes easier with features like route optimization, driver tracking, route monitoring, SMS notifications, and accurate ETAs. 

Circuit software allows you to optimize routes with up to 500 stops per route. Fleet-based businesses often underestimate the need for proof of delivery. But Circuit has grasped the vehicle routing problem and offered proof of delivery through customer signature. 

However, it won’t let your drivers add breaks along their routes unless they have iOS phones. We also found the spreadsheet import feature a little tedious, as it required us to fill in too much data in sheets.

One-liner verdict: Best for delivery businesses if you don’t mind spending a little more time filling in data to import addresses and checking their accuracy.

Key Features:

  1. Dynamic customer notifications: Keep your customers of delivery status updates through custom text and email notifications.
  2. Driver analytics: This helps you monitor your drivers and fleet’s performance based on the percentage of successful and unsuccessful delivery attempts per day or week.
  3. Dispatcher view and driver app: This allows you to modify routes in real time, notify your drivers of changes, and let them add or remove stops as needed.
  4. Integration: This provides a two-way API to integrate with your existing systems, such as Shopify and Zapier, for automated and seamless route planning. 

Pricing:

  • Starter: $100/month for up to 500 stops
  • Essential: $250/month for up to 1000 stops
  • Standard: $500/month for up to 2000 stops
  • Pro: $750/month for up to 5000 stops
Pros
  • Quick and easy to use for admins, dispatchers and drivers
  • Route creation and optimization is easy both in-browser and on the app
Cons
  • Editing routes on the app can be a bit of a pain

❗Beware Dispatches, Don’t Let Inefficient Routing Eat Up Your Time and Money! ⚠️

Implement Upper’s advanced fleet routing software to prevent yourself from getting stuck with poorly planned routes. Get your optimal routes created in a matter of minutes with Upper’s advanced routing algorithm and optimize your time, fuel usage, and profit margins.

4. Route4Me 

Number of stops: Up to 5000 stops based on the plan and works on the pay-as-you-go model.

Route optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Works on:  Android, iOS, and Web

Ideal for: Shipping businesses

Route4Me is a cloud-based route planning solution that saves businesses from routing chaos. It is ideal for shipping organizations with multiple stops for one driver and claims to generate shorter routes. It gives a ton of information as well as allows for a lot of customization on your routes. 

Further, whether you want to view your routes as a grid on a big map or view one route at a time, Route4Me lets you do that without any hassle. However, a limitation that our test revealed was that this delivery management software assumes your delivery team or driver starts at the same time from the same point.

One-liner verdict: Suitable for optimizing your routes when your driver’s start point remains the same.

Key Features:

  1. Multi-stop route planning: It lets you create optimal multi-stop routes to handle increased volumes of orders and service appointments efficiently. 
  2. Email & text notifications: This keeps your customers informed with custom SMS or email notifications for delivery status confirmations, cancellations, schedule changes, and specific instructions to handle deliveries or appointments, if any.
  3. Analytics: It provides detailed insights into mileage, fuel, and drivers’ costs to determine and work on areas of improvement to enhance your overall efficiency.
  4. Real-time collaboration: This app enables continuous communication between you, your drivers or technicians, and customers to identify any issues, queries, or concerns immediately.

Pricing:

  • Route Management: $200 per month
  • Route Optimization: $300 per month
  • Business Optimization: $450 per month
Pros
  • Easy to use and quick
  • Improves scheduling and makes effective deliveries
  • Easily add new stops
  • Ability to plan routes using pre-set ETAs
Cons
  • It is very expensive
  • No room for customizing driver profile
  • Add-on features have additional fees

5. Tookan

Number of stops: Start from 200

Route optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Platform: Android and iOS

Ideal for: B2B and B2C delivery businesses 

Tookan is one of the leading route optimization software that helps you streamline dispatch operations and facilitate communication between you and your delivery team.

What makes it stand out is a web dispatcher dashboard that enables you to track orders via real-time tracking and keep a tab on day-to-day movements. 

It is one of the best route planning solutions that lets users analyze the performance metrics of delivery fleets and drivers using actionable analytics. However, testing revealed issues with live tracking and more-than-normal downtime, causing a loss of productive time.

One-liner verdict: Overall good for your delivery operations except for the downtime that may sometimes hamper your operational efficiency and productivity.

Key Features: 

  1. Driver app: This app lets your delivery agents access customer information, navigate optimized routes to ensure on-time deliveries, and collect images or signatures as proof of delivery
  2. Fleet tracking & management: This software facilitates monitoring your drivers’ behavioral issues, like vehicle idling or rash driving, and scheduling proactive vehicle fleet maintenance. 
  3. Inventory management: It allows you to match your customers’ orders against your drivers’ inventory to assign deliveries to each driver accordingly. 
  4. End-to-end encryption: This enables securing your customers’ data in an encoded format.

Pricing: 

  • Early Stage: $49 per month
  • Startup: $129 per month
  • Growth: $299 per month
  • Standard: $599 per month
Pros
  • 24/7 customer support
  • Drivers monitoring
  • Integration with other apps
Cons
  • No customization options
  • Auto-allocation doesn’t work properly

6. Workwave Route Manager

Route optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Platform: Web, Android, iOS

Ideal for: Logistics professionals involved in managing fleets of 500 vehicles

Workwave Route Manager software helps optimize routes in real time and accommodate changes easily. 

You can use it to dispatch these routes to your delivery team on their mobile device and get real-time updates regarding your core business process. You can also send the same SMS notifications to your customers and keep them informed about their package location. 

What piqued our interest and stood out from other stops, in particular, was the route simulations that it provides. You can change different variables in a simulated environment to evaluate route modifications and implement the most suitable changes. However, a major limitation that we observed is less comprehensive reports that fetched data for only a few days against what was required, leading to reliability issues. 

One-liner verdict: Good for your fleet management in general if you are okay with spending some time, ensuring reporting accuracy.

Key Features: 

  1. Reporting & Analytics: This feature helps monitor your vehicle usage, track your drivers’ behavior to identify and reward good performers for retaining them, and make informed business decisions through data-driven insights.
  2. Barcode scanning: It lets you label and track your products through different stages of the entire supply chain by scanning different types of barcodes on your products based on their type.
  3. API Integration: It facilitates integration with your customer management portal to auto-update your route plan based on the incoming orders from your customers, saving time and labor.
  4. Route Manager Voice: This feature enables your drivers to call your customers through their mobile app and notify them of the upcoming or canceled delivery

Pricing:

Starts at $54 per month per vehicle.

Pros
  • Easy-to-use driver application
  • Better technical support team
  • Affordable route planner
Cons
  • A little bit pricey

7. Verizon Connect

Route Optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Works on: iOS, Android, and Web

Ideal for: Commercial industrial trucks

Verizon Connect is the software for route management specifically designed for fleets of all sizes, especially small and medium-sized. 

With its active smart dashboards and advanced route optimization tools, it evaluates millions of route options to determine the best multi-stop route for your fleet. One of the best parts that we liked about this software is the drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to shuffle stops, no matter how packed your route is.

With round-the-clock monitoring, you can effectively manage drivers’ unsafe behavior, unauthorized use, or deviations from the standard procedure. You can operate dynamic routing with fewer fleet vehicles and a small delivery team. One of the major issues it posed when during testing was that it didn’t have dedicated ITFA report formats. Customer service support was also not up to the mark.

One-liner verdict: Best for small to mid-sized fleets if you can patiently deal with their customer service.

Key Features: 

  1. Multi-stop route planning: Lets you plan and optimize your multi-stop routes based on traffic constraints, drivers’ working hours, and customers’ preferred time windows.
  2. Emergency dispatch: Allows you to pick the most suitable driver for an urgent delivery based on skill requirements, where they are, and the type of vehicle they have. 
  3. Accurate job costing: This allows for taking into account fixed and per-mile costs, labor expenses, and accommodation for long trips when planning routes.
  4. Smart fuel card tracking: This helps you track your fuel card usage to spot dubious transactions and reduce fuel card fraud.

Pricing: 

Not disclosed. Depends on the number of drivers in your fleet, routing requirements, and location.

Pros
  • Live tracking app
  • Easy navigation for drivers
  • On time notifications
Cons
  • Service time issues
  • Customer service is not great

Fleet Routing Can Turn into a Nightmare‼️

But Not If You Have Optimal Routes!😊

Make Upper’s route planning software your fleet routing companion to optimize your routes, and don’t let fleet routing problems haunt you ever!

8. GeoTab

Route Optimization: Available

Multi-stop route planning: Available

Works on: iOS, Android, and web

Ideal for: Commercial industrial trucks

Equipped with actionable insights and suggestions to boost fleet efficiency, GeoTab is one of the popular fleet routing software for your business. Ranging from driver/asset tracking or fuel management to fleet management reporting, this fleet dispatch system software provides all you need to ensure seamless fleet management. 

A feature that sets it apart from Circuit or other planner apps is fault code notifications, which let you detect an issue in your vehicle and fix it before any further issues, like a breakdown, occur. However, one problematic aspect was the less interactive user interface, which made it hard to find what you were looking for.

One-liner verdict: Best for commercial telematics for global fleets if you can afford to put in some extra effort and time to learn to use it.

Key Features:

  1. Routing & dispatching: This helps create the most efficient sequence of stops that accommodate both your deliveries and pickups, saving time and fuel costs.
  2. Fleet insurance: Leverage your drivers’ safe driving behavioral patterns to convince your insurers for insurance subsidies, save money, and improve your bottom line.
  3. Fleet maintenance: This allows you to get information on engine diagnostics, maintenance schedules, and maintenance cost reports to ensure your delivery fleet performs optimally.
  4. Keyless access management: This method uses fully digitized keys to help you grant or manage your drivers’ access to your fleet vehicles remotely and reduce theft incidents.

Pricing:

Not disclosed. Completely based on the number of vehicles in your fleet.

Pros
  • IFTA compliance
  • Accurate GPS tracking
  • Timely speed alerts
Cons
  • Reported issues with Wifi or hotspot
  • Steep learning curve

What Are the Key Features of Fleet Routing Software?

Below is the list of main features of the best routing software.

1. Route Optimization Platform: The ability to optimize your multi-stop routes daily is an important feature for efficient deliveries. Having a route optimization solution is important to finding the most efficient way of making deliveries. It is a significant feature for delivery businesses that lessens the job of your delivery team.

2. Proof of Delivery: Collecting proof of delivery by capturing a picture of the product being delivered at the doorstep or e-signature is a good way to ensure that deliveries are being fulfilled and planned. If a package is missing, the driver has proof to show that the delivery has been fulfilled.

Put an End to Your Delivery Confirmation Chaos Forever

Use Upper’s Proof of Delivery to collect your customers’ signatures or images of products after every successful delivery to maintain a verifiable record for future reference.

3. Customer Notifications: Customer notifications allow you to inform your customers about the estimated time of arrival of your package. Customers can be ready to receive the package or make adjustments to be present to receive the package whenever their driver reaches the destination.

4. Delivery Constraints: Route planning with company-specific constraints like priority, service time windows, vehicle size, and vehicle capacity can be difficult to manage. When you have a sophisticated route algorithm taking care of operational efficiency, you can easily focus on your deliveries.

FAQ

Yes, you can choose free apps like Waze and Mapquest for this purpose, but they have their limitations. For better results, you can use a route planning app like Upper Route Planner to plan multiple deliveries with multiple locations at once.

A fleet management company is responsible for maintaining the performance and safety of vehicles. By ensuring fleet safety, vehicle maintenance, and reduced fuel costs, the company improves overall productivity.

The delivery routing process includes optimizing delivery fleets by considering fleet size, vehicle capacity, and driver availability. Fleet routing and optimization will reduce vehicle costs and help your delivery team complete deliveries on time while meeting ETAs.

Fleet managers or fleet administration are known for managing delivery fleets as per the number of deliveries or service appointments to be performed. The role of the fleet administration user is to deploy vehicles and drivers for deliveries or services. Nowadays, fleet routing software has taken over the role of fleet administration.

While your choice of fleet routing software depends on your business needs and problems, you can consider Upper routing software as an advanced multi-stop route planner. Other good fleet routing software solutions are Route4Me, Circuit, OptimoRoute, Tookan, and Omnitracks.

Manage Your Fleet the Smart Way with Fleet Routing Software

Fleet routing software is the key to balancing the three aspects crucial to fleet management success: accuracy, efficiency, and adaptability. If you are a fleet manager facing challenges like collaborating with drivers or customers and optimizing fuel or maintenance costs, implementing fleet routing software can be key to improved fleet efficiency. 

The choice of fleet routing software may sometimes be tricky. Nevertheless, evaluating your business-specific fleet management requirements and expectations from a fleet routing solution can help you arrive at the right decision. So, it’s time to gear up and pick the right the right routing management software to transform your routing operations.

Author Bio
Rakesh Patel
Rakesh Patel

Rakesh Patel, author of two defining books on reverse geotagging, is a trusted authority in routing and logistics. His innovative solutions at Upper Route Planner have simplified logistics for businesses across the board. A thought leader in the field, Rakesh's insights are shaping the future of modern-day logistics, making him your go-to expert for all things route optimization. Read more.

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