Multiple depots, open routes, and reloads

Routing24 supports several depots, open-ended routes, and mid-route reloads. You set each vehicle's Start Depot and Finish Depot on the Fleet page. An empty Finish Depot makes the route open-ended. Max reloads sets how many times the vehicle may return to a depot for more load. Each return starts a new trip on the same route.

This tutorial plan has two hubs, each with its own van. The South van cannot carry all the orders near its hub in one load, so it returns to its hub, reloads, and delivers the rest:

Multiple depots

Add your depots on the Depots page. Then, in the vehicle editor, give each vehicle its Start Depot and Finish Depot. The optimizer assigns each order to the vehicle that makes the whole plan cheapest. In the tutorial, that gives each van the orders near its own hub.

A depot also has Open hours and a per-visit Service duration. They apply every time a vehicle is at the depot: at the start of the route, at the final return, and at every reload in between. Both tutorial hubs open 07:00 to 19:00 and take 10 minutes per visit.

Open-ended routes

Leave the Finish Depot empty and the route ends at the last stop. There is no return leg. Clear Finish Depot on the tutorial's South van and its route finishes at the last delivery instead of at the South hub. Typical cases are a contractor who ends the day at home and a rental van returned to the rental company.

An empty Start Depot works the same way. The route begins at the first stop. A vehicle without a start depot has no depot to reload at, so it runs a single trip unless Reload depots names one. Leave both empty and the route runs from its first stop to its last.

Reloads and trips

By default a vehicle may return to its start depot mid-shift, reload, and continue. Each return starts a new trip on the same route. The tutorial's South van holds 10 units. The orders near its hub add up to 18. The van delivers what it can, returns to the South hub, reloads, and delivers the rest. On the optimization page, the route card shows a ↻ Trip N divider at each reload. The header metric reads ROUTES / TRIPS instead of ROUTES.

Two fields in the vehicle editor's Depots group control reloading:

• Max reloads: how many times the vehicle may reload mid-route. A value of 2 allows two reloads, so three trips. Empty means unlimited. 0 turns reloading off (single trip). The tutorial's North van is set to 0. The orders near the North hub add up to 14 units. The van holds 15, so one trip serves them all.
• Reload depots: the depots the vehicle may reload at. Empty means the vehicle reloads at its own start depot. It is hidden when Max reloads is 0, so the tutorial's North van does not show it.

A reload takes time. The vehicle travels to the depot and spends the depot's Service duration there. The vehicle can reload only while the depot is open. The optimizer compares the cost of that time with the cost of another vehicle, using the vehicle costs you set.

At a reload the vehicle unloads the pickups it has collected and loads the deliveries for its next trip. Cargo that is not bound for the depot remains on board. That is a transfer consignment the vehicle has collected but not yet delivered, and goods for the remaining orders of an order sequence. The vehicle visits the depot and then continues the sequence. This cargo still occupies space on the next trip, so a vehicle can leave the depot with more on board than it loaded there. The reload stop shows the load carried through.

In spreadsheets

The Vehicles sheet has Depot, Start depot, End depot, Max reloads, and Reload depots. Depot sets start and finish in one column. Leave Start depot empty for an open start, or End depot empty for an open finish. The Depots sheet has Handling time, Open from, and Open to. The full column list is in the column reference.

Next step

At a reload, cargo is loaded at a depot mid-route. Pickup & delivery transfers covers cargo that never passes through a depot, collected at one address and delivered at another.