Route Optimization

Smarter Routes for Tree Care Crews

Stop building tomorrow's route in your head at 9pm. ArborDash puts your stops in drive-time order in seconds, and your crew opens the route on their phone when they start the day.

An hour of crew drive time at fully loaded payroll is real money, and it repeats every day for every truck. ArborDash orders each day's stops by drive time so a crew isn't doubling back across town, and shows you the total miles and drive time before you commit. The saved route is waiting on your crew's phone when they start the day.

Click Plan Route on the Schedule page, or Optimize Route under a day on the calendar. Pick a crew, and ArborDash pulls that crew's jobs for the day, plus that crew's unscheduled jobs when you start from Plan Route, and orders up to 25 stops by drive time. Routes start and end at your default company address unless you pick another one, type an address, or set a different end point. The map shows the route line, the stop list shows the drive time and miles between stops, and the totals show drive time, distance, work hours, and revenue.

When the order looks right, click Schedule Route. ArborDash proposes a start and end time for every stop from the drive times, each job's estimated hours, and your business hours, and tries to fit customers who asked for a certain time of day. Change any stop's time if you need to, then send customers their date and time window by email, or by text to customers who have opted in. On the crew's phone, the route takes them through the stops in order, one at a time, and shows the drive time and distance to the next stop, the services, your crew notes, and the trees tied to each service. One tap on the address opens directions in Google Maps. Back at the office, the GPS Tracking page shows each crew member's live location on a map, with each crew's saved route drawn in its own color and a count of jobs finished.

If a job runs long, gets canceled, or an emergency call comes in, open the crew's route and optimize again. Jobs the crew has marked complete drop off the list, a new job assigned to the crew shows up ready to add, and you can type the address they're working at as the new start point. Save it, and the crew sees the new order when they refresh their route.

What it does

  • Stop order by drive time for up to 25 stops per route
  • Round trip or one-way from your office, another company address, or any address you type
  • Per-crew daily routes color-coded across multiple crews
  • Routes on crew phones with one tap to open directions in Google Maps
  • Live crew locations on a map alongside each crew's saved route
  • Re-optimize mid-day when emergencies or cancellations hit
  • Estimated total drive time and miles for the day
  • Schedule notices by email or text with each customer's date and time window

How It Works

  1. Schedule jobs to a crew on a date in the standard calendar view.
  2. Click Optimize Route under that day, or Plan Route at the top of the Schedule page, and ArborDash orders the stops by drive time.
  3. Check the drive time and miles between stops and for the whole day, then save the route.
  4. Click Schedule Route to set a start time for each stop. On the day, the crew starts the route from their phone and taps an address to open directions in Google Maps.
  5. Send customers their date and time window by email or text. If the day changes, open the route and optimize again.

Related Features

Scheduling & Calendar Crew Management Mobile Apps Property Mapping SMS Texting Time Tracking

Cut crew drive time. Get more jobs done per day.

Plan routes in seconds, put them on your crews' phones, and re-optimize when the day changes. Try ArborDash free for 14 days.

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Common Questions

Route Optimization FAQ

Does it use live traffic?
No. Drive times come from Mapbox's standard driving profile, which picks the fastest roads but does not factor in current traffic. On days that run through rush hour or school zones, change any stop's start time before you apply the schedule.
Can I lock specific stops in place?
Not in the optimizer, which orders stops by drive time alone. Time windows come in when you click Schedule Route. ArborDash gives each stop a start time, tries to fit customers who prefer early morning, morning, afternoon, or late afternoon into that window, and flags any stop that misses it, lands on a day the customer doesn't want, or runs past closing time. You can change any stop's time before you apply the schedule.
What happens when an emergency call comes in mid-day?
Assign the new job to the crew for today, open their route, select the job, and optimize again. Jobs the crew has already marked complete drop off the list, and you can set the start point to the address they're working at now. Save the route, and the crew sees the new order when they refresh their route screen.
Can multiple crews share the same job pool?
Yes, when the pool has more than 25 stops, the most one route can hold. Load the pool in the Route Planner, such as everything unassigned, and click Split Routes. Choose how many routes you want or how many stops each route should have, and ArborDash groups the jobs by location. You then assign each group to a crew and a date.
Does it work for snow plowing or other multi-stop services?
Yes. The planner routes any job that has an address, so snow removal or other seasonal work is planned the same way as tree jobs.