Snow Removal Route Planner: Plan Snow Plowing Routes Like a Pro

Snow plowing services are a boon for consumers as they help reduce the hassle of removing snow themselves. People with busy lifestyles or senior citizens often opt for these services during the cold weather. A report shows the snow plowing services industry in the US to have a market size of $20.8 billion. So, snow removal businesses can grow in this industry given they know which software to use for route planning. 

Right from choosing the right equipment to customer relationship management, you need to ensure that you are geared up for the winter! And as the season is just around the corner, you can start planning optimized routes for your drivers and serve more customers. There are many route planner apps that can help you plan efficient routes and reduce fuel costs. 

In this blog, we will help you understand how a snow removal route planner works and how to use it rightly.

What is Snow Plow Route Planning?

Planning routes is a process of calculating the effective modes of transportation or snow plow services with multiple stops. It is usually used to have a clear idea about the best and the most efficient routes that can help save time. 

Normally, transport or logistics service providers use GPS tracking or online maps to generate routes. However, most of these companies that need advanced features have started using route optimization software. You can plan and schedule optimized routes based on locations and serve your customers in a better way. 

How does it Work? 

Planning routes manually can be challenging, especially if you have a lot of customers. Snow removal business owners often face issues with routing when trying to plan routes based on postcode. When you plan routes without a route optimization software, there are chances of human errors. Considering the equipment used in snow removal services, upgrading to a route planner will help reduce route planning time. 

A route planner can help schedule snow removal services as per specific time slots and driver preferences. It lets you find the best routes as per delivery constraints like weather conditions and traffic flows.

By finding time-saving routes, the software reduces fuel usage, thereby helping you save money on gas. Route planner helps you schedule multi-stop routes for your snow plow trucks to edge-past on-road obstacles. Eventually, it not only lessens your workload but also nullifies human errors.

Upper – An Ideal Snow Removal Route Planner

If you were wondering how to plan routes for snow plow services, Upper is all you need. 

Upper Route Planner is an extensive route optimization software to scale your snow plow business. You can plan and dispatch snow removal routes in minutes. It comes with advanced features like finding cost-effective routes for multiple addresses. 

With Upper, you don’t need to waste time doing manual paperwork. In case a snow plow driver is unavailable, it instantly lets you re-assign routes to another driver. Within a few clicks, you can plan routes in advance and dispatch them to drivers via text, email, or the driver app.

One of the salient features of Upper is that your drivers can collect proof of delivery or task completion. It keeps your teams in the loop and ensures accountability for the snow removal service team.

Analytics can also be viewed for a particular date range, route, and route status. You will be able to have a clear picture of the number of successful or failed deliveries.

How to Find Optimized Snow Plowing Routes on Upper Route Planner? 

Upper is an easy and streamlined solution to plan routes for your snow removal owing services. Once you sign up and create your account, it becomes extremely easy to get started. Here is the step-by-step process you can follow:

Step 1: Import addresses

Upper lets you add hundreds of stops with a one-click import feature. So, you can steer clear of copy-pasting or entering each address manually and import them through an Excel, or CSV file. After you have done adding them, you can review them as below:

• Verified: These are addresses automatically verified from Google Maps. 
• Need to review: Addresses that you may need to verify for any spelling mistakes or other errors.
• Not found: These addresses may not be available on the map. You can edit them with the correct details.
• Duplicate: If there are duplicate entries of an address, you can keep or remove them depending on your requirement.
• Verify all: You can select this option to verify all the addresses at once even if they are duplicates or in review. 

Step 2: Edit stops

To make things more specific, you can edit the details of each snow removal stop by clicking on the 3 dots near that stop. This feature lets you edit the address, name, additional notes, priority level (crucial, high, medium, low), and optional details. 

When you add these details for each snow removal stop, your delivery drivers will be able to perform better as per your customers’ preferences. 

Step 3: Add users or drivers 

Creating a profile for new drivers is easy with the ‘Add drivers’ option. Upper also lets you assign roles like dispatch manager and admins with their profile creation. You can add their names, contact numbers, email address, vehicle type they’ll be using, driving preferences, and other requested details. 

The start and end location point allow you to add the locations for a particular driver. You can also add specific schedules and break times for individual drivers here. 

Step 4: Optimize routes

The next step is to dispatch optimized routes to the selected driver. The ‘Optimize and Assign Routes’ tab will take you to the review page showing routes on the map. In case of multiple drivers, the system will optimally divide all the snow plow stops in a region. You can swap routes between any two drivers if needed. 

For ease, you can also select a particular region on the map using the multi-selector tool. The ‘Routes’ option near ‘Timelines’ shows the timing of each stop in the route. You can also reverse a route or add a stop for a particular driver if needed. 

Step 5: Assign routes to drivers

Now that you have created optimized snow removal routes, you can share them with your drivers. A single click dispatch will send the routes to drivers on their mobiles either via the driver app or through a text/email with the URL. The Upper route planner also makes it easy to print the PDF version and share the same with drivers. Once done, the drivers can get started with their tasks on the assigned routes without having to find the addresses.

Now that you know about using Upper to optimize snow plow routes, how about giving it a try? Take the 7-day free trial today!

Conclusion

When it comes to snow plowing, the right software solutions can make things super easy and productive. Using a route planning and optimization software can help you schedule routes for days or months in advance. Upper helps create a streamlined process and keep the data under one platform. Along with reducing manual work for your snow removal business, it helps you save cost on fuel, thereby increasing your profits.

So, next time if you need optimized routes, now you know what to do, right? Upper, a snow removal route planner, offers route optimization, route scheduling, one-click dispatch, proof of service, apart from route planning. Get Upper Route Planner for your snow plowing business to get a competitive edge. Try a 7-day free trial today.