How does route optimization work?
Short answerRoute optimization builds a table of drive times between every pair of stops, picks a starting order, then swaps stops around to shorten the total while respecting time rules. Results are good approximations, not proven best answers, because checking every order is too slow.
The explanation
Step one is a distance table: the drive time from each stop to every other, taken from map data. Step two is a first guess, such as always visiting the nearest unvisited stop. That guess is usually decent but has obvious flaws, like a long return trip.
Step three is improvement. The software tries small changes, like reversing a section of the route or moving one stop elsewhere, and keeps any change that lowers the total. It repeats until changes stop helping. Time windows and fixed visits act as rules that reject changes breaking them.
With ten or more stops, the number of possible orders is too large to check all of them, which is why the answer is called good and not proven best. For a day of eight to twelve stops, a good heuristic is usually close enough that the real gains come from correct job lengths.
How Apex does it
Built, rolling out
Built. A real server path exists; only setup steps remain before customers can use it. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
Apex includes a daily route optimization and route-density based best-fit window offers. The window offers are built and still being rolled out, and any reordered route is reviewed by the owner.
- SC05Route optimization (daily)(Built)
- SC06Route density / best-fit window offers(Built, rolling out)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.
Where this question comes from: owners type it, or a close variant, into search boxes. It was returned by public search suggestions (Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo) when we collected them on 2026-10-06. We do not have search volumes.