Running multiple delivery routes without losing control

One route is easy to run from memory. You know the driver, the stops and the customers who are always late to pay. The second route changes that. You can no longer watch both, and small problems start to hide in the gap between them.

This guide covers when to split, how to split well, what to compare each day, and how to keep the office in control without standing next to every driver.

When one route becomes two

A single route is stretched when you see signs like these.

• The driver finishes very late. Deliveries slip into the evening and customers complain about timing.
• Customers are spread out. A long drive between stops eats the hours that should go to deliveries.
• Morning deliveries arrive after lunch. Customers who need jars early stop trusting your timing.
• Growth comes from one direction. A new colony or a group of shops adds twenty stops in one area.
• You have no slack. If the driver is ill, the whole route stops and you have nobody to cover.

None of these mean you must split today. Look at your own numbers: stops per day, hours per run, and how many customers complain about timing. If the route works and growth is slow, a second route may only add cost.

How to split routes

A good split reduces the driving and keeps the customer experience steady.

1. Group by area first. Draw the customers on a map or list them by colony. Split along natural boundaries such as a main road, a river or a market.
2. Balance the load. Count stops and jars, not just stops. A route with ten shops taking 20 jars each is heavier than one with thirty houses taking one.
3. Keep each customer with one driver. Customers like a familiar face, and drivers learn who keeps empties where.
4. Fix a delivery window. Tell each customer roughly when to expect delivery, such as morning or afternoon, and keep to it.
5. Leave room to grow. Do not fill a route to the brim on day one. New customers will arrive.
6. Move standing orders with the customer. When a customer shifts to a new route, their standing orders must move too. Otherwise the order stays on the old route and nobody delivers it.

That last point is easy to miss. Check it every time you move a customer.

Review the split after a month. Move a few customers if one route is always late and the other is always early.

Per-route daily numbers to compare

Once you have two or more routes, a few numbers tell you most of what you need. Compare each route against its own past and against the other routes.

• Stops planned and stops completed. A route that routinely completes fewer stops has a problem to understand.
• Jars delivered. Compare with the plan for the day.
• Skipped stops and reasons. A pattern of “customer not home” on one route is worth a conversation with the customers.
• Extras and shorts. Many extras suggest standing orders are out of date. Many shorts suggest loading mistakes or stock problems.
• Empties collected against jars delivered. This is the bottle balance for the route. See empty jar tracking.
• Money collected. Cash and UPI recorded by that route’s driver.

Different routes have different sizes, so compare ratios, such as empties per jar delivered, as well as raw counts. Look for the route that is different from the others, then ask why.

Handling driver absences

Absences are certain to happen. Plan for them before they do.

• Name a relief driver. Decide who covers a route when its driver is out. It may be another driver after finishing his own route, an office person or a part-timer.
• Keep the route in one place. The relief driver should receive the day’s stops and standing orders, not rely on the regular driver’s memory.
• Brief on special stops. Gates that need a call, customers who need empties collected, shops that need a signature. Keep a short note for each route.
• Do not skip the day record. Relief days are when mistakes rise, so make the same counts: delivered, empties, skipped with reason.
• Review the next morning. Look at the relief day for shorts, skips and missing empties before you close it.
• Tell customers if the time will change. A short message avoids a flood of calls.

If one route has no cover at all, decide in advance which customers get priority, for example shops and offices first, then households.

A daily close-of-day routine for the office

The office is where multiple routes become manageable. A short, fixed routine, done each evening, catches problems while they are small.

1. Check every route is complete. List the routes and any stops left unmarked. Call the driver about missing ones.
2. Review skipped stops. Read the reasons. Anything unclear, ask now.
3. Look at shorts and extras. Were the shorts a loading error? Do the extras need a change to a standing order?
4. Reconcile jars per route. Full jars left, empties collected, bottle balance. Resolve gaps today.
5. Reconcile money. Match the cash and UPI recorded by each driver with what was handed in.
6. Lock the day. Once the checks pass, close each route’s day so records stay fixed.
7. Note tomorrow’s issues. Any customer to call, any standing order to change, any driver to talk to.

Allow about ten to fifteen minutes per route when records are good. If it runs longer, find out which step slows you down.

What to look at weekly

Daily checks keep the day clean. A weekly look shows trends.

• Route comparison. Which route has the highest skip rate, the biggest empties gap, the most shorts?
• Customers repeatedly skipped or short. These need a conversation or a change of standing order.
• Dues by route. Slow payment can cluster on one route and point to a collection habit worth fixing.
• Driver patterns. Not to catch people out, but to see who needs help. See driver accountability without micromanaging.
• Workload balance. Is one route always finishing late and another early? Move a few customers.
• Customers added and lost. Which route is growing, and when does it need its own split?

Keep a one-page weekly summary per route. After a few weeks you will see what is normal, so the unusual stands out.

Example

This is an illustrative example with made-up round numbers. It is not a result or an average.

Two routes on a Monday:

Route 1 is close to plan. Route 2 completed 20 of 25 stops, and its balance is 12 jars, which is far higher than Route 1. The office checks Route 2’s skipped stops and finds five skips with the same reason, “customer not home”, all in one colony. The likely cause is a time window that does not suit those customers. The 12 jars are partly explained by new customers taking stock. The office moves the colony’s delivery window and checks the new customers’ holdings. Neither fix needed anyone to shadow the driver.

How Pyaau helps

Pyaau is an Android app for jar delivery businesses. For running several routes, today it does the following:

• Builds each driver’s route every night from customers and standing orders.
• The driver swipes each stop delivered or skipped, with a reason for a skip, and sets jars and empties.
• The office sees a close-of-day summary per run: delivered, skipped, extras, empties, bottle balance, short jars and above planned. “Lock Run” closes the day.
• A short-and-extra report can be viewed by customer or by route over any dates.
• The app has two roles, office (admin) and driver, and can run in Hindi.

Coming next: a web admin panel.