Alternative pickup & delivery locationsCopy link

Sometimes an order does not have one fixed address. A parcel may go to the customer's door or to a locker around the corner; stock may be collected from whichever of two shops is on the way. In Routing24 you model this with alternative locations: a set of candidate stops of which the optimizer serves exactly one. Alternatives are a Pro feature; the free tier can use them within the free paid-feature optimizations.

This tutorial plan has a locker-or-home transfer delivery and an either-shop alternative, among regular orders:

Tutorial - Alternative locations
PRO
A transfer whose parcel may go to the home address OR a locker, plus a plain either-shop alternative group, among regular orders. Uses Pickup & delivery (transfers), Alternative pickup/delivery locations, included in Pro.
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Plain orders: an alternative groupCopy link

For standalone orders, put every candidate in one Alternative group (the Group column in spreadsheets): the optimizer serves at most one member, whichever fits the routes best, and reports the others as not chosen rather than unassigned. Each candidate keeps its own address, time window, and service duration.

Transfer ends: candidate locations for one sideCopy link

A pickup & delivery transfer can offer alternatives on either end, for example "deliver to the home address OR the locker" or "collect from any of our two shops":

  • Give every candidate of one end the transfer's Transfer id and that end's role (all pickup or all delivery).
  • Put those candidates in one Alternative group of their own. The pickup side and the delivery side each use their own group.
  • All candidates of one end carry the same load.

The optimizer then serves exactly one pickup candidate and exactly one delivery candidate whenever the transfer is served at all, and picks the combination that suits the routes best. Re-optimizing may switch to a different candidate as the plan changes.

The Orders list with the locker-or-home delivery candidates and the either-shop group, each row carrying its Alt.group chip

Up to 8 candidates per end, and at most 16 pickup x delivery combinations per transfer.

Reading the resultCopy link

A solved plan: the route serves the locker and one shop; the home address and the other shop sit under Alternatives (not chosen)

  • Routes show the chosen candidate as a normal stop.
  • The other candidates appear under Alternatives (not chosen); they do not count as unassigned.
  • If the whole order cannot be served, it is reported once (under its first candidate), not once per candidate.
  • On the map, candidates of one transfer are linked with thin dashed connectors.

Consistency requirementsCopy link

  • Candidates of one end must share the load, and every order of one transfer shares the same tags, priority, Load class, Max time in vehicle and Max ride overtime.
  • One service window per transfer candidate (plain alternatives may keep multiple windows).
  • An end-set's group may contain only that end's candidates: no plain orders mixed in.

Violations show as non-blocking warnings on import; an inconsistent set is skipped at optimization, every candidate of both ends with it, so the rest of the plan still solves (see why a stop is unassigned).