How to plan the fastest route for your delivery process

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Updated on: September 11, 2026

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Reading Time: 7 minutes

TL;DR: The fastest delivery route is one that’s optimized for all your stops at once, not just mapped in the order you entered them, which is where free navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze fall short. Route optimization tools like Zeo Route Planner address this with AI-powered route optimization that reorders stops for the shortest, quickest path, helping delivery teams save 2+ hours daily.

Planning the fastest route for your delivery process and passing it to your drivers is one of the biggest headaches people face in the last-mile delivery operations. Sending the packages out for delivery needs proper route planning, and businesses use various ways to complete this process.

The Smart Way to Plan Fast Delivery Routes

You must always try to provide the fastest route to your delivery drivers to complete all deliveries while also saving fuel safely. There are many tools and apps available in the market today, which can help you achieve your job quickly and efficiently.

These tools and apps can give accurate driving directions from one place to another and help you find the shortest route. There are four such tools: Google Maps, MapQuest, Waze, and route optimization software.

Don’t worry; we will help you out by answering the question and, in the process, help you decide which app would best suit your delivery business.

#1. Using Google Maps to Plan the Fastest Route

Google Maps is one of the most used apps in the world for route planning. However, while it might be great for personal use, it’s not suitable for commercial purposes. We have also completed a post that talks about planning a multi-stop route using Google Maps.

To plan a route on Google Maps, you need to enter your destination address and starting location. Though you can plan multiple routes using Google Maps, there is a cap on it. You can also add up to 10 stops only. We don’t think that any delivery business will get any benefit from it.

Also, Google Maps doesn’t offer route optimization and only shows you directions according to how you entered your destination addresses.

Let’s take an example to understand this fact: if you enter Destination B first and then Destination A, it’ll show you the way from Destination B to Destination A, even if Location A comes first when driving towards Location B. And if you are proceeding in this manner, you will increase your fuel costs and waste the time of your drivers.

Apart from being popular, Google Maps is not the best solution for finding the fastest route to work, especially if you have to plan multi-stop routes for multiple drivers. However, Google Maps offers some great features, such as voice directions for a hands-free, offline mode for continuous navigation, an autocomplete feature; we don’t recommend using it for planning your routes for the delivery process.

#2. Using MapQuest to Plan the Fastest Route

MapQuest has also had a route planning and navigation service in the market for quite a long time now; though it is not quite as famous as Google Maps, it has the upper hand.

However, it lacks some essential features necessary for route planning software. One similarity that we found between Google Maps and MapQuest is that they both offer a web and a mobile app with satellite and street views.

An important feature that MapQuest provides is finding places like hospitals, parking, grocery stores, and coffee shops using a single button feature, which is not there in Google Maps.

MapQuest is a free-to-use service and is available in around 252 countries.

MapQuest allows you to easily re-optimize your routes and shows you the estimated fuel cost for each trip. Due to this reason, it has a higher advantage than Google Maps if you are using it for your delivery process.

We don’t recommend using MapQuest for your delivery business as many places in the app need reforming. Though you can use it for personal use, we don’t recommend it for commercial purposes, because, like Google Maps, MapQuest also doesn’t offer route optimization and unlimited route planning.

#3. Using Waze Map to Plan the Fastest Route

Waze Maps is also another popular navigation and route planning app. It is better than Google Maps because Waze uses user-generated data rather than satellite-based data.

Google Maps uses satellite data to highlight real-time traffic conditions and predict the estimated time of arrival (ETA) at a location. In contrast, Waze Maps uses user-generated data, which is sometimes more accurate.

Users using Waze Maps can report any accident, roadblocks, or heavy traffic as they pass by, and other users will receive notifications about the same if they are using the same path. As soon as any user passes by the same route updates it, all other users will get a notification about it.

Waze Maps also offers voice directions and allows voice instructions, which are much better than Google Maps. However, just like Google Maps, Waze Maps is not the best route planner for your multiple stops. It, too, lacks a route optimization feature that you need for planning the fastest route. You can schedule a route with numerous stops, but there’s no guarantee that the route will either be the quickest or the shortest.

#4. Using a Route Optimization App to Plan the Fastest Route

After discussing the free services offered by Google Maps, Waze Maps, and MapQuest, it’s now time we talk about the need for route optimization software, just like Zeo Route Planner, which can help you in managing your last-mile delivery operations.

A multiple-stop route planner app is the best solution to plan the fastest route to work. Besides providing optimized routes to save fuel, it allows you to schedule various stops and lets you keep an eye on your drivers, and gives you an upper hand in this cutting-edge competition. This aligns with guidance from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, which tracks how freight and delivery efficiency directly affects fuel consumption and operating costs nationwide.

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Let’s look at how a route optimization software like Zeo Route Planner can help you plan the fastest route for your delivery process.

Route Planning and Optimization

A route planner software allows you to plan your route in a much faster fashion. Talking about the Zeo Route Planner platform provides you with the option to import all your addresses through the spreadsheet, image capture/OCR, and bar/QR code scan.

Zeo Route Planner allows you to add 500 stops at a time and unlimited route optimization throughout the day. A route optimization service provides you with the best algorithm to optimize all your routes and gives you the fastest and safest route.

Zeo Route Planner’s efficient algorithm does this process in just 20 seconds. All you need is to import your addresses into the app; you click on the Save and optimize button, and Zeo Route Planner will do all the complex tasks for you.

Live Route Tracking

Along with the route planning and optimization, you also get the feature to track all your drivers with the routing software. If you are in the delivery business, then you need to track all your drivers in real-time. In this way, you can help your drivers if they face any breakdown during the delivery process.

With Zeo Route Planner, you get the option to access our web app, and from there, you can monitor every action of your drivers in real-time. You get to see the routes they are taking, the deliveries they have completed, and the deliveries that are still left. Live route tracking helps you keep track of all your delivery operations and keep a check on driver performance.

Automated Delivery Updates

If you are in the delivery business, you know that keeping your customers happy is your primary motive. If your customers are not satisfied with you, then it will directly impact your business. Thus, to tackle this problem, routing software provides you with customer notification services to keep your customers informed about their delivery.

Zeo Route Planner provides you with automated delivery updates to keep your customers updated about their packages. You get the option to send SMS or email, or both, to your customers, and that message will also contain a link to the dashboard of Zeo Route Planner, which they can use to track their package.

With the help of customer notifications, you can make your relations with the customers more robust, and in turn, this will increase your profits.

Proof of Delivery

Proof of Delivery is an essential factor in the last-mile delivery, and this helps keep your delivery process more transparent with the customer. Proof of Delivery avoids any conflict with your customers after the delivery is over.

It seldom happens that the customers complain that they have not received their package; it is when you can show them the signature of the receiver or a photograph of where the package was left, to resolve the issue.

Zeo Route Planner provides you with electronic Proof of Delivery or ePOD and allows your drivers to capture the POD in two ways:

1. Signature capture: Your delivery driver can use their smartphone as a tablet, and they can tell the receiver to use their fingers as a stylus and sign over space.
2. Photograph capture: It sometimes happens that the customer is not there to receive the package. In that case, your driver can leave the parcel in a safe place and then capture the image of where the package was left.

Thus, Proof of Delivery is also one of the essential features you get in a route planner software, and this is a critical feature in the delivery business.

Final Words

We have seen how one can plan and optimize routes using the free-to-use services provided by Google Maps, MapQuest, and Waze Maps. After exploring all these options, it is right to say that these services are suitable for personal use, but we don’t recommend them for commercial use. For commercial use, you should use a routing app.

We have seen how a routing app, such as Zeo Route Planner, helps you plan and optimize all delivery routes using various importing methods. Using a routing app gives you an upper edge over your competitors. You can track your drivers’ activities, provide customer notifications, maintain proof of delivery for future references, and maintain a good customer relationship.

Our motive is to make life easier and comfortable for small and medium businesses. So now sign in to Zeo, and you are only one step away from importing your Excel and getting away.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does route order matter more than distance alone?

Route order determines how much backtracking and idle driving time your vehicle accumulates, which affects fuel burn even more than total mileage does. Two routes covering the same distance can differ by 30-45 minutes or more in actual drive time simply because of stop sequencing, according to fleet efficiency research from the EPA’s SmartWay program. This is why sequencing stops intelligently matters as much as picking the shortest roads.

What causes most delays in daily delivery routes?

The most common causes of delivery delays are poor stop sequencing, unaccounted-for time windows, and lack of real-time visibility into traffic or driver location. When dispatchers can’t see where drivers are mid-shift, they can’t reroute around problems as they happen. Real-time GPS tracking and dynamic route adjustments solve this by letting managers and drivers react to changes on the fly instead of discovering delays after the fact.

How many stops can a route optimization app handle at once?

This varies by platform, but Zeo Route Planner supports bulk address import of up to 500 stops at a time with unlimited route optimizations run throughout the day. This is a significant jump from consumer navigation apps like Google Maps, which caps route planning at around 10 stops. For businesses running multiple vehicles daily, this difference is what makes route optimization software a practical necessity rather than a convenience.

Do free navigation apps optimize the order of multiple stops?

No. Free apps like Google Maps and Waze generally route stops in the order you enter them rather than calculating the most efficient sequence. This means drivers using these apps for multi-stop deliveries often end up backtracking, which wastes fuel and time. Dedicated route optimization software recalculates stop order using distance, time windows, and traffic data to minimize total drive time.

How can delivery businesses reduce fuel costs without changing vehicles?

The fastest way to cut fuel costs without touching your fleet is to reduce unnecessary miles through smarter route sequencing and capacity-based load planning. Zeo Route Planner’s AI-powered route optimization helps delivery teams save 2+ hours daily by eliminating backtracking and inefficient stop order. Combining this with mileage tracking for expense records also gives businesses better visibility into where fuel spend is actually going.

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