Route Plan Template (Tourenplan)

A route plan – German: Tourenplan – brings order to the driving day: it defines the sequence in which a vehicle visits its stops, which time windows apply, and which order belongs to each stop. With this free template you plan daily routes in a structured way – as a PDF for the clipboard or as an Excel sheet for dispatch.

What belongs in a good route plan?

A route plan is more than a list of addresses. For drivers and dispatch to work from the same picture, it needs these details – the template has a dedicated column for each:

• Date, vehicle, and driver of the route
• Stop sequence with customer, address, and particulars of the unloading point
• Time window per stop (earliest/latest)
• Reference to the order number, so every stop maps to exactly one order
• Planned and actual arrival and departure times – the difference is the basis for post-calculation
• Remarks (notification requirements, tail lift, on-site contact)

How do I plan a route manually?

Manual route planning follows a few simple rules:

• Time windows first. Fixed appointments set the frame of the route – all flexible stops arrange themselves around them.
• Cluster stops geographically. Work through districts or postcode areas one after another instead of criss-crossing the territory.
• Build in buffers. Loading and unloading times are almost always underestimated – 10 to 15 minutes per stop plus a traffic reserve is realistic.
• Avoid peak hours. Schedule inner-city stops for off-peak times and keep the longest leg out of rush hour.

Excel or route planning software?

For one vehicle with stable, recurring routes, the template works well – set up cleanly once, little changes. Its limits show as soon as several vehicles, short-notice orders, or conflicting time windows enter the picture: manual planning quickly turns suboptimal, and that costs real money in empty kilometres, missed time windows, and routes that exist only in the dispatcher's head. A transport management system plans routes automatically, checks time windows against each other, and shows every vehicle live on the map – that is exactly what we built the Maxmove TMS for.

Frequently asked questions

How many stops per route are optimal? There is no fixed number – stop density, dwell times, and driving-time limits decide. In urban distribution, 15 to 30 stops are common; for general cargo with long dwell times, far fewer. Plan so the last time window still holds even with half an hour of delay.

How do I estimate time windows realistically? Record actual arrival and departure times for a few weeks – that is what the template's actuals columns are for – and compare them with the planned values. Recurring deviations at certain customers or times of day feed into the next plan.

What about short-notice orders? Check which running route can absorb the new stop with the smallest detour – do not simply append it at the end. This is exactly where the paper plan hits its limit: the plan is printed, the driver is on the road, and replanning happens over the phone.

When does route planning software pay off? As a rule of thumb: from two to three vehicles with daily changing stops – or as soon as time windows regularly collide and dispatch spends more time replanning than planning.