Capacity, deliveries, and pickupsCopy link

Every vehicle carries a capacity number, every order adds to it, and no route may exceed it.

This tutorial plan splits eleven stops across two 15-unit vans, including one customer return:

Tutorial - Capacity and loads
Ten delivery stops plus a customer return, with loads that force the work to split across two 15-unit vans.
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Units, capacity, and loadCopy link

Capacity and load are plain numbers with no built-in unit: boxes, crates, kilograms, liters, pallets. A vehicle's capacity and every order's load must use the same unit: if capacity is in boxes, every order's load is in boxes too.

  • Capacity lives on the vehicle (Fleet editor). Empty means unlimited.
  • Delivery on an order is load carried from the depot to the stop.
  • Pickup on an order is load collected at the stop and carried back.

A plain order can carry both: a stop that takes 2 boxes and hands back 1 crate of empties is Delivery 2, Pickup 1.

How the optimizer packsCopy link

The solver tracks the load along the whole route, not just the total. A van that starts with 14 boxes of deliveries frees space at every stop, and that space can absorb pickups collected later on the route. Capacity binds per trip: a vehicle that reloads at a depot starts the next trip full again.

Capacity is a hard limit. When the load does not fit, the solver uses another vehicle; if the whole fleet is short, it leaves the cheapest orders unassigned.

Capacity is not the only thing that constrains what shares a route. A vehicle can also refuse to carry two product classes together. See Product segregation: do not mix load classes.

Reading loads on the resultCopy link

Two solved routes with their LOAD metrics and per-stop load arrows

After optimizing:

  • Each route card shows LOAD: the total it delivers and collects.
  • Each stop row shows its own load with a direction arrow: down for deliveries, up for pickups.
  • The Excel export's Routes stats sheet adds Load factor columns, how full each vehicle ran. Low load factors across the fleet indicate the plan can run with fewer vehicles.

If a route shows "Overloaded by N"Copy link

A solver-built route never overloads. The red problem line appears only after manual edits: you dragged more load onto a route than the vehicle holds. Move an order off, or raise the capacity if the real van is bigger than its number.

Next stepCopy link

Loads interact with working time: a van with space can still run out of hours. See Shifts, working hours, and route limits.