How to Split Deliveries Between Drivers (Without Losing an Hour Every Morning)

Why this is harder than it looks

Splitting a day feels like sorting, but it is a search problem. Take a modest day: 30 stops and 3 drivers. Each stop can go to any of the three, so there are 3 to the power of 30 ways to divide the day, about 206 trillion, before you even decide the order each driver drives them in. Nobody compares those by hand. What people actually do is pick a split that looks reasonable, and the difference between reasonable and good shows up as miles, overtime and late stops.

We measured how big that difference is. On three real delivery days, we compared Raute's old planner, which forced every driver to take an even share of stops, with the current one, which gives each stop to the driver it costs least. Same orders, same drivers available. Total miles dropped by 34%, 52% and 53%. The even split was the expensive part.

How to split the day, step by step

1. 1

   Lock in the stops that have a time window

   Anything with "before 10", "after 2" or "call first" goes on the board first, because those stops decide who can be where and when. Put each one with the driver whose day can actually reach it in time, then plan the rest around them.

2. 2

   Know where every driver starts and ends

   A driver who leaves from home in the north of town and one who loads at the warehouse downtown are not interchangeable. Write down each start point and when each shift ends before you assign a single stop.

3. 3

   Cut the map into areas, one per driver

   Draw rough areas that radiate out from where each driver starts, like slices of a pie. Use roads, rivers and freeways as borders, not ZIP codes, because a driver cannot cross a freeway wherever the map has a line.

4. 4

   Balance by hours, not by stop counts

   Estimate each driver's day as driving time plus time at each door. A common rule of thumb is five minutes per simple drop and far more for heavy items, installs or signatures. Move stops from the longest day to its neighbour until the finish times are close.

5. 5

   Move the border stops to whoever passes nearest

   Look at the stops on the edges between areas. Each one belongs to the driver whose route already goes closest to it, even if that breaks the neat areas you drew. This step alone is where most of the wasted miles hide.

6. 6

   Put each driver's stops in driving order

   Only now sort each route into a sensible loop from the start point and back, keeping the windows in place. A route that zigzags across its own area can cost as much as giving the driver three extra stops.

7. 7

   Check the result before anyone leaves

   Three numbers tell you if the split is good: total miles, the latest finish time, and how many stops will miss their window. If one driver finishes two hours after the others, go back to step four.

A worked example

Say you deliver around Los Angeles with three drivers and 24 stops today. Tessa loads at the warehouse downtown, Priya starts from home in Glendale, and Danny starts in Culver City. Four stops have windows: two downtown before 10 AM, one in Santa Monica after 2 PM, one in Hollywood that wants a call first.

• The two early downtown stops go to Tessa, who is already there at 8.
• The Santa Monica stop after 2 goes to Danny, late in his day, since he works the west side.
• The areas follow the freeways: Tessa takes downtown and east, Priya the hills and Hollywood, Danny the west side.
• A first count gives 9, 8 and 7 stops. Danny's seven are spread out, so his day is actually the longest; two of his stops near Koreatown move to Tessa, who passes within a mile of them.
• Each route is put in a loop from its start, with the windows held in place.

The stop counts end up uneven, 11, 8 and 5, and that is the point: the finish times are within half an hour of each other and the total miles are lower than the even split.

The mistakes that cost the most

It depends on what you deliver

Water delivery

Most of the day is standing routes, plus will calls and skips that change daily. Keep each customer with the same driver where you can, since drivers learn the gates and the garages, and let the planner fit today's will calls into whichever route passes closest. Our water delivery page shows how that works.

Couriers

New pickups land in the middle of the shift, so the split is never final. What matters is being able to add a stop to the driver who will pass nearest in the next hour, without redoing everyone's day. See Raute for couriers.

Medical equipment and other heavy drops

Time at the door dominates: setups, explanations and signatures can take longer than the drive. Balance by hours with a realistic service time per stop, or one driver will be out until dark. More in our guide to DME delivery software.

When to stop doing it by hand

• You have three or more drivers and twenty five or more stops on a normal day.
• Some stops have delivery windows.
• Orders arrive by email, text and spreadsheet and somebody retypes them every morning.
• One driver regularly finishes long after the others.
• Splitting the day takes your dispatcher more than half an hour.

If two or more of those are true, a planner pays for itself in fuel alone. In Raute you paste or upload the day's orders as they are, press Plan, and each driver gets their route on their phone, with the windows kept and the border stops handed to whoever passes nearest. You can also read the route optimization guide for how the ordering part works.

Questions people ask