Route density: how to fit more jobs in a truck day

Route density is how many jobs (or how much revenue) a crew does per mile or per hour of driving. A dense route has stops a few minutes apart. A thin route has the same number of jobs spread across the county, with an hour on the highway between them.

For home service, density matters more than for most businesses, because every job means a truck, a trailer, people on the clock and setup time. Drive time earns nothing.

Track three numbers per truck per day: drive time as a share of the day, jobs per truck day, and revenue per truck day. Together they show whether the schedule is earning or driving.

drive share = drive minutes ÷ (drive minutes + on-site minutes)
jobs per truck day = jobs done ÷ truck days
revenue per truck day = revenue from completed jobs ÷ truck days
a truck day = one crew working one day

Look at the numbers by area and by day of the week. A drive share that is high on Mondays and low on Thursdays usually means Monday's jobs were booked wherever the customer wanted, while Thursday was planned.

Drive time costs twice: the vehicle (fuel, wear, insurance) and the crew's paid hours. Add both up for a typical day and the gap between a thin route and a dense one is usually larger than owners expect.

daily drive cost = miles × vehicle cost per mile + drive hours × crew cost per hour

In this invented example, the dense day does one more job and spends $177.40 less on driving. Over 200 working days, that is about $35,000 per truck, before counting the extra job.

Decide where each truck goes on each day before you book, then steer customers toward those days. You don't need special software to start: a map of your customers and a weekly zone plan go a long way.

1. Split your [service area](/glossary/service-area) into zones (by ZIP code or by a road that splits the town). Four to six zones is plenty for most companies.
2. Give each zone its days. "North on Tuesday and Friday, south on Monday and Thursday." Offer those days first when booking.
3. Fill around existing jobs. When a new lead is near a booked job, offer that day: "We're on your street Thursday morning."
4. Schedule plan visits by zone. Service plan visits are flexible by a week or two; put them where trucks are already going.
5. Market near your jobs. Neighbors see the truck and the clean driveway. Door hangers or a postcard to the street after a job bring leads that are already on your route.
6. Price for distance. A travel fee, or a higher minimum charge, for jobs outside your core zones keeps far-off work worth doing.
7. Order the stops. Within a day, run the stops in a loop that starts near the shop and ends near home, not in the order they were booked.

A simple zone schedule tells the office which days to offer for each part of town. Customers can still ask for another day; the default just leans dense.

• Keep one flexible day a week for rain moves, callbacks and big jobs.
• Review the plan each season: zones grow unevenly.
• Put commercial work that must be done early or late on its own route.

The moment of booking is where density is won or lost. A customer offered "any day you like" picks a day that suits them; a customer offered "Tuesday or Friday morning" usually takes one of those.

• Offer two or three options, not an open calendar, when booking by phone.
• Use [booking windows](/glossary/booking-window) ("8 to 10 AM") rather than exact times, so the crew can run the route in the best order.
• Keep some capacity for call-ins when customers book themselves online, so the office can still place work where it fits.
• Watch [no-shows](/glossary/no-show) and access problems. A locked gate on a dense route wastes less time than on a thin one, but it still breaks the day.

Measure last month, draw your zones and change how the office offers days. Those three steps cost nothing and show results within a few weeks.

1. Measure last month. For each truck day, note jobs done, miles (from fuel logs or the truck's trip meter) and revenue. Work out drive share and revenue per truck day.
2. Find the worst five days. Look at where those jobs were. Most thin days have one or two far-off jobs pulling the route apart.
3. Put your customers on a map. Even a printed map with pins shows where your clusters are and where you are spreading thin.
4. Draw zones around the clusters and give each one its days for the next month.
5. Change the booking script: "We're in your area on Tuesdays and Fridays. Which suits you better?"
6. Re-measure after a month and compare the same numbers.

They give you work you can place. A one-off customer picks a day; a plan visit or an HOA contract usually has a week or two of room, so the office can put it where a truck is already going.

• Plan visits are the filler. When a truck has a gap on a north-side Tuesday, the office pulls the north-side plan visits due in the next two weeks.
• HOAs are density in one stop. One community can mean many homes, or many common areas, in a few streets. Book the whole community on the same days.
• Neighborhood offers build clusters. "We're doing three homes on Magnolia Court on the 14th: book the same day and save 10%" turns one job into several, close together.
• Re-service lists by area. When last year's customers are due again, contact them zone by zone, so their visits land on the same days.

Not automatically. A far-away job is worth taking when it pays for the drive (a large job, a travel fee, a plan customer) or when it starts a new cluster you want to grow. It is not worth taking at your normal price on your busiest day.

• Every property is placed on a map. The customers map can filter to customers within a few miles of a ZIP code, which helps fill a day near existing jobs.
• The dispatch board has a map view with each truck's day drawn along the roads, numbered in route order, and the drive time between consecutive jobs shown on the board.
• Online booking can be limited to your service area (a list of ZIP codes) and offers times from real crew capacity, keeping part of each day for the office.
• Reports show revenue per truck day, so you can see whether denser days earn more.
• Plan visits arrive in the scheduling tray ahead of time, so they can be placed on days a truck is already nearby. See service plans.
• Birdy does not reorder a day's stops for you automatically; the office sets the order and the map shows the result.