Goals: what the plan optimizes
Goals do not add rules; they tell the engine what a better plan means. They are all optional, and each one trades something: usually a few kilometres for a plan that fits how you work.
Objective: fewest kilometres or shortest driving time
Fewest kilometres (the default) minimizes total distance: fuel, tyres and emissions. Shortest driving time minimizes total drive time: it can prefer a highway that is longer but faster. Choose time when drivers are paid by the hour or the day is tight; choose distance when vehicle running costs dominate.
How many vehicles to use
| Setting | Behaviour | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| As many as is cheapest | The engine uses a vehicle only if it lowers the total. Some vehicles may stay at the depot. | Most days. Idle vehicles are reported so you can plan around them. |
| Give every vehicle at least one stop | Every vehicle gets work, even if one more vehicle adds distance. | Drivers are paid for the day anyway, or every vehicle must go out. |
| As few as possible | Packs the work into the fewest vehicles that can still meet capacities, windows and shifts. | Hired or rented vehicles, drivers you can send home, or fleet sizing (how many vans do I really need?). |
Daily cost per vehicle (Fixed cost in a vehicles file) is a softer version: each vehicle used costs that amount in the plan, so the engine only adds a vehicle when it saves more than its cost. Give a higher cost to rented vehicles to use your own first.
Balance the work across vehicles
By default the engine looks for the cheapest plan, which can give one driver eight hours and another three. Balancing evens out the days:
- Even working time: driving plus time at stops. The fairest choice for drivers paid by the hour, and the one to use for field-service technicians.
- Even number of stops: each driver gets about the same count. Good for couriers paid per drop.
- Even load: each vehicle filled to about the same share of its capacity. Useful when loading time at the depot matters.
How strictly: gently only balances when it costs little distance; balanced is a middle ground; strictly evens the days even if it adds distance. Vehicles left idle count as zero, so balancing tends to put every vehicle to work. On a completed plan, the button Re-run with balanced workload creates the balanced version and opens the comparison.
Balancing and As few as possible pull in opposite directions, so they cannot be combined: the engine asks you to choose one.
Through the API and MCP
| Field | Values | Default |
|---|---|---|
| objective | distance | duration | distance |
| vehicle_usage | auto | all | fewest | auto |
| balance | off | duration | stops | load | off |
| balance_strength | low | medium | high | medium |
| cost_per_km, cost_per_hour | Converts the daily vehicle cost into the objective | 1.0, 30.0 |
| solver_seconds | 1 to 60: search time | About a quarter second per stop, 3 to 10 s |