How to Find the Fastest Route with Multiple Stops in 2024

If you’ve ever tried to manually optimize a route you’ll know that it’s a time-consuming struggle. Choosing an optimal path is always a challenge, whether you’re going from point A to point B on a daily basis or dealing with multi-stop routes. It takes time that could be spent elsewhere more productive for your business.

In this blog post will teach you all you need to know:

• What is the best method to get from point A to point B?
• What is the difference between the shortest and fastest routes (and which is best for you)
• How to get Google Maps to determine the quickest route for you
• How to make multi-stop delivery routes more efficient

You’ll also get a list of the finest route planners by industry, so you can use cutting-edge technology to determine the most efficient route for all of your deliveries. Why do the hard work yourself when software can do it for you?

Let’s dig in…

Table of Contents

• What is the difference between the fastest and shortest routes?
• Can you find the quickest route using Google Maps?
• How to make the fastest route using Google Maps
• How do I get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time?
• How to Find the Fastest Route with Multiple Stops
• Conclusion

What is the difference between the fastest and shortest routes?

Many folks aren’t aware that the quickest and shortest routes aren’t always the same. When measured in minutes, the fastest route is the one that takes the least amount of time. When measured in miles, the shortest route is the one that takes the fewest miles.

Is this to argue that the shortest path should always be taken? That really depends on your delivery goals.. The fastest route will bring you to your destination faster, but it will almost certainly require several curves and winding roads.

A truck driver, for example, may prefer to take the shortest route if time is not a concern. They will be able to avoid paying tolls and save money on gas as a result of this.

A field salesperson, on the other hand, will almost certainly take the fastest route because it allows them to meet with more clients and prospects every day.

Consider your needs, priorities, and route objectives while selecting whether to take the fastest or shortest route.

Can you find the quickest route using Google Maps?

Google Maps is a fantastic mapping service from Google. It’s the most user-friendly, dependable, and straightforward (not to mention free!) tool for calculating the quickest route between two points. It provides real-time updates on road conditions, traffic congestion, and accidents. This allows you to schedule your day as you see fit and account for any unforeseen happenings.

Google’s options, on the other hand, are limited. There are only ten stopss you can add to your route, and the route planner inserts them in the order you enter them, not the order they should be.

While Google Maps is fantastic for occasional routing or daily errands, it isn’t the ideal solution for regularly optimizing a route with a lot of stops.

If you’re a delivery driver or a field service technician who needs to construct routes with several destinations, you’ll need a tool that not only optimizes your route in the most effective way for you (whether that means the fastest or shortest route), but also simplifies other areas of your job.

Continue reading to learn about the best tools for your routing needs!

How to make the fastest route using Google Maps

Follow these steps to get the fastest route using Google Maps:

1. Make a mental note of where you’d like to begin and where you’d like to end. Google Maps will automatically analyze factors such as traffic and road conditions before creating the quickest route.
2. Select ‘Add stop’ from the three-dot menu in the upper right corner if you wish to add more destinations.
3. Fill in the new address.
4. Rearrange each stop manually and try different combinations until you discover the shortest route.

How do I get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time?

It is relatively simple figure out the best path between two stops. It may take a little time, but you can do this manually using a map.

However, technology today means that doing that manual work is no longer required. You can use a free route planners to identify the most effective path from point A to point B. Because most of these tools are quite user-friendly, the ideal app for you will mostly depend on your particular preferences.

Google Maps

Price: Free
Features: Routing, turn-by-turn directions, live traffic conditions, and street view
Benefits: User-friendliness

Every month, almost one billion individuals use Google Maps. It is the most user-friendly software for planning easy journeys, which explains why the statistic is so high. With features like turn-by-turn directions and real-time traffic updates, users can commute with ease.

Because Google Maps is one of the most popular web mapping services, they can track locations, access incidental reports from local traffic bureaus, and use historical data. This allows them to precisely identify how traffic is moving so that other users are not forced to choose a congested route.

Waze

Price: Free
Features: Turn-by-turn directions, traffic notifications, mobile speed checks, and carpooling
Benefits: Updates on Traffic and Hazards

Waze has grown in popularity during the last decade. It looks a lot like Google Maps, which makes sense given that Waze was purchased by Google in 2013.

Waze is more advanced than Google Maps, with features such as off-road shortcuts, advanced travel planning, and real-time traffic reports from other Waze users. Waze is a navigation app that assists vehicles in getting to their destinations as quickly as possible.

How to Find the Fastest Route with Multiple Stops

To find the shortest route between numerous stations, you’ll need specialized software. Even for a computer, multi-stop optimization can bechallenging! The nature of your routes will determine which route finder is suitable for many destinations. Here are the greatest multi-stop route planner choices on the market for deliveries:

EasyRoutes

Price: Many plans to support businesses of all sizes. Plans start at $0 and go up to $249.99 a month depending on the size of your business. There are free 14-day trials available for any of the plans.
Useful for: Any size business (small, medium, or large) with any size fleet. Breweries and distilleries, bakers, butchers, cafés, florists, supermarkets, meal kits, produce, and subscription boxes.
Available on: Any device with a web browser can access it (desktop & mobile). And there are driver apps for IOS and Android.

EasyRoutes converts your Shopify orders into optimum local delivery routes (complete with detailed inventories) that you can share with your drivers or deliver yourself using the EasyRoutes Delivery Driver app.

Our app isn’t simply for establishing delivery routes; it’s also for helping with fulfillment. There’s no need to waste time exporting and importing spreadsheets as you would with other route planning software because EasyRoutes is fully integrated with Shopify and your store’s orders. You can easily add last-minute orders, and your packing lists will always be current. Orders are automatically updated in Shopify when you or your driver designate them as delivered from the road.

EasyRoutes provides a variety of choices for creating routes that are tailored to your company’s needs. You can even define how many routes a group of selected orders should produce.

You can customize any of your optimized routes with our full array of edit tools. You may add last-minute orders, edit stops, drag and drop stops, and even split your orders into different routes.

After you’ve completed your adjustments and are satisfied with your routes, you can either deliver them personally or share links to them with your drivers.

The EasyRoutes Delivery Driver app was created to provide you or your driver with all of the information and controls they require. It enables your delivery team to navigate stop-by-stop using their preferred navigation software.

Drivers can designate orders as Out for Delivery, Delivered, or Attempted Delivery while on the road. Drivers can also view any crucial delivery notes as well as the products they are transporting. As proof of delivery, they can include numerous images, an e-signature, and a note. With the touch of a button, they can even phone or text a consumer.

Because EasyRoutes is so tightly integrated with Shopify, any changes you make while on the road are automatically synced back to your Shopify orders.

Customers want to be able to track their orders at all times during the delivery process. To assist you, we give a personalized customer tracking link for each of your orders, allowing consumers to check on the status of their orders at any time. We also send out notifications for any delivery events, ensuring that your clients are never in the dark.

Summary

EasyRoutes is the best route planner for Shopify store owners without a doubt. With seamless integration with Shopify, EasyRoutes seems like a natural part of the ecosystem.

EasyRoutes works with a diverse group of businesses across a range of industries. The app often saves hours each week when it comes to route planning. For certain firms, such as Bloomen.ca, EasyRoutes has been revolutionary: “Because EasyRoutes integrates so well with our back end, we’ve purchased our own driver fleet, which was never part of our initial business model,” explains Rishi Dhuck, Director of Operations. “Our delivery and order statuses are now completely under our control.”

EasyRoutes is also a fantastic option for groups. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, EcoFuel.ie was able to schedule and handle their supplies fully remotely using EasyRoutes. “Since we started using EasyRoutes, we’ve gone from spending roughly 5 hours a day organizing routes to only needing an hour each morning to plan out our deliveries,” says Susie Tan, Office Manager.

EasyRoutes has been selected twice as a Shopify Staff Pick. It has good reviews, is well-supported, and caters to businesses of all sizes with plans and free trials.

EasyRoutes is available now in the Shopify App Store.

Speedy Route

Speedy Route is a good delivery routing software with features tailored for on-the-go delivery drivers and salesmen. Speedy Route is a wonderful solution for individuals who want route planners without the distracting bells and whistles. It offers a straightforward user interface with few frills.

Users can quickly and simply optimize their trips with Speedy Route, which reorders any destinations input by them in the most optimal order. Speedy Route is a popular and reliable program with an easy-to-use user interface. Although it originated in Europe, it is now used all over the world.

Timeboxing and drag-and-drop location re-ordering are helpful features that give you more control over your route and allow you to design the optimal route for your purposes.

To top it off, if you only intend on making 10 trips or less, Speedy Route is entirely free. Any additional stops require a paid subscription, which is relatively inexpensive.

Summary

In comparison to other more current, graphically dynamic apps, Speedy Route’s design appears to be a touch archaic. It’s also only available on the Speedy Route website, which limits mobility and accessibility when compared to route planner apps on a phone or device.

If you can get past the aesthetic restrictions, Speedy Route’s functions are just as useful as any other route planner for getting delivery drivers where they need to go swiftly and safely.

Speedy Route’s basic, gimmick-free approach to mapping is preferred by those who enjoy working with standard maps.

The easier the route planner is to use, the better for some users. Spend less time figuring out how to use your route planner and more time using it.

MyRoute Online

MyRoute is a wonderful alternative for truck drivers searching for a simple all-in-one solution for their multi-stop route planner needs. It’s trustworthy, and the user interface is simple. MyRoute has been used to plan over 5 million routes, making it one of the most popular tools in professional transportation.

MyRoute is a route planner for delivery trucks and truckers who must make several stops. It helps with the day-to-day practicalities of delivering and selling things while traveling.

MyRoute allows users to map up to 350 stops per route, allowing them to optimize routes based on distance or time. MyRoute is the go-to route planner for people who have a big list of customers and destinations along their routes because it allows for so many stops.

There’s no need to juggle several stops after exporting a list of addresses to the user’s GPS system or mobile device of choice; all of their destinations are put out in the most efficient manner.

Summary

Truck drivers and delivery people who wish to save time on their routes without spending a lot of money will find MyRoute to be a great resource.

Some may find MyRoute’s UI to be too basic and antiquated, since it does not visually compare to some of the newer route planner apps that are more dynamic and modern for today’s trucker.

Their customers, on the other hand, are pleased, proving that MyRoute is an excellent choice for truck drivers who value convenience and dependability. MyRoute is ideal for truckers and delivery drivers searching for a simple platform to organize their routes.

Routific

Another multi-stop delivery route planner app is Routific. It focuses on the route planning and optimization of delivery drivers. Although it lacks the functionality required for a sales force, it is a good solution if you have a courier or delivery fleet.

Routific replaces many tools in your fleet, including a GPS, a physical map, and a planner.

It provides a straightforward API and functionality for delivery teams, such as planning and optimization. Prior to dispatch, management can download or distribute routes directly to drivers’ phones via their app.

It offers a function that allows drivers to alert clients of the projected arrival or completion time of their delivery. They can also send a personalized message to their consumers regarding their drop-off.

The driver tracking capability will be beneficial to management. It plots drivers’ progress on a map based on how successfully they execute assignments. It does not use GPS to track their location, but it does provide predicted arrival times for subsequent stops. It also enables management to simultaneously monitor and track several projects on the same map, with a corresponding bar graph depicting the territory and expected route completion.

As proof of delivery, every delivery service requires signature capture. To help with accountability, Routific includes one embedded within the app.

You can adjust driver routes on the fly, optimize them for efficiency, and dispatch the route from home base if traffic gets heavy or stops change suddenly. Missed deliveries and completions are among the data collected by the app. This provides team leaders with the data they require to build more successful routes over time.

Time windows, vehicle capacity, delivery types, driver speeds, priority stops, shift schedules, and driver breaks, to name a few, are all taken into account by Routific’s route optimization. More precise optimization translates to more precise ETAs, completions, and pleased drivers.

Summary

Routific has helped customers save money on net operating expenses and driving times, as well as provide more exact delivery windows and decrease fuel expenditures.

The Essentials service from Routific costs $39 per month per vehicle, while the Professional service costs $59 per month per vehicle and has more features. They also provide a Premium service for teams that demand more personalised support and features. A specific quote from one of Routific’s sales reps is required for this service.

In terms of functionalities and overall API beauty, it exceeds RouteSavvy as a multiple route planner for delivery. Routific is a wonderful option if your delivery or courier service requires some of these more upscale features.

OnFleet

OnFleet is another effective route optimization option if your company focuses on delivering items to industries like food and beverage, retail, e-commerce, or pharmacy.

From start to finish, OnFleet provides a fleet management software that encompasses route planning, dispatch, communication, and analytics. It’s built to handle the complex logistics of fleet management while keeping a clean, professional user interface.

The company’s integrated route optimization engine, which takes real-time traffic occurrences into consideration, is used to develop routes. Real-time updates are also available to drivers, allowing for seamless last-minute route modifications.

By ensuring that the proper drivers receive the right instructions at the right time, their auto-dispatch capabilities decrease service time and labor costs.

It also features a smooth onboarding process, making OnFleet adoption for your entire workforce a breeze. Also supported are Google Maps, Waze, and Apple Maps.

To top it off, it features a reliable proof of delivery system that uses images, barcodes, notes, and signatures to ensure managers that each delivery has reached at its destination.

Summary

Users of OnFleet are happy with their delivery capacity because this multi-stop route planner meets many of their fleet needs.

Across the board, their on-time rates and customer satisfaction have improved. OnFleet helps you keep organized and ensures that your deliveries arrive on time and at the correct spot.

OnFleet has various disadvantages, such as the fact that it was designed for huge enterprises and so may be too expensive for small businesses. While some of these larger organizations may be able to afford OnFleet, growing businesses may prefer to search elsewhere due to its high cost.

OnFleet is a terrific alternative if your firm requires a top-notch route planner for sustained performance and has the budget to support it.

Conclusion

Technology has solved and automated the challenge of finding the quickest route for one or more stops, so why not use it to make our life easier? With so many software solutions available, picking which tool is ideal for you is the true challenge. This information should have assisted you in determining which option is the greatest fit for you.

Are you still undecided? It’s not a problem at all! The majority of these route planners provide free trials, allowing you to try them out and evaluate which one best meets your needs.

If you work in delivery, the decision is simple. In addition to providing the quickest way to all of your meetings, EasyRoutes streamlines every element of your delivery workflow

Begin a free trial today!