Aug/Sept 2008

An enhanced pay-as-you-go online vehicle routing and scheduling service has been launched by Postcode Anywhere, the address matching software specialist. It is said to enable developers to build scheduling for complex multi-drop delivery operations into their software systems without capital expenditure. Calculations can cost as little as 2p per route, the company says.

The system has been designed to handle sophisticated routing optimisation requirements, and the company is keen to differentiate it from standard point-to-point route-finding services.

It can for instance take account of data such as the vehicle weight, height, width, length and maximum axle weight, and can plan routes from several depots over several days. Once the parameters are set up, users simply supply a list of waypoints or destinations, and the routing system handles the rest.

The product is supplied as a Web service, in which all the hard work is done on Postcode Anywhere's Web server, and users adopt standard tools such as SOAP or XML to access it. The company's public Web site provides plenty of useful instruction and examples of how it all works.

 

Pricing is managed on an advance payment basis in which users buy a number of 'credits' , which can be topped up automatically. Overall pricing starts at £50, covering a thousand searches.