Tour Planning (Tourenplanung)

Tour planning (German: Tourenplanung) is the logistics task of distributing many orders across vehicles and stop sequences so that every shipment is delivered on time at the lowest possible cost. It is one of the classic optimisation problems in logistics (known in research as the "vehicle routing problem") – and in daily operations, the discipline that decides kilometres, fuel, and punctuality.

What feeds into tour planning

• Orders & stops: pickup and delivery addresses, quantities, priorities.
• Time windows: customer commitments, opening hours, ramp slots.
• Vehicles: payload, loading metres, vehicle class, and equipment.
• Drivers: availability, shifts, driving and rest times.
• Driving times: realistic times per time of day instead of as-the-crow-flies guesses.

Manual vs. automatic

Up to a handful of stops, tour planning works with experience, a map, and a spreadsheet. Beyond that, the number of possible sequences explodes: 10 stops already allow more than 3.6 million orderings, 15 stops more than a trillion. Manual planning then finds a workable solution at best – software finds a near-optimal one in seconds and simply recalculates with every new order.

Route planning software connects the optimisation with daily operations: orders flow in digitally, dispatch approves suggestions, and the finished tour lands in the driver app with navigation. Delays and urgent orders are worked into the plan on the road instead of wrecking the day.

Tour planning at Maxmove

In the Maxmove TMS, tour planning is part of dispatch: the optimisation respects time windows, payload, and vehicle class from fleet management, and every stop is confirmed with a digital proof of delivery. For quick planning without a system, there's also the free tour plan template.