Route Optimization

Smarter Routes for Tree Care Crews

Stop building tomorrow's route in your head at 9pm. ArborDash plans optimized multi-stop routes in seconds and dispatches them straight to crew phones.

ArborDash route planner showing optimized multi-stop crew route with traffic and ETAs

A bad route costs you the same as a missed job. An hour of crew driving time at fully-loaded payroll is real money — multiply that across five crews and a season and route inefficiency quietly bleeds tens of thousands of dollars from your operation. ArborDash plans routes that keep your trucks moving in the right direction, with live traffic factored in, and pushes the day's plan straight to your crews' phones.

The route planner works from your scheduled jobs. Pick a date and a crew, and ArborDash pulls every job on the calendar, calculates the optimal stop order using current traffic, and shows you a map view with the proposed sequence, total drive time, total miles, and estimated start and end times. You can drag stops to reorder if you have a reason (a customer is only home in the morning, or a job needs to be paired with another crew), and the ETAs recalculate live.

Once you're happy, one-tap dispatch sends the route to the crew's phone. The mobile app shows them their stops in order with one-tap navigation to each address, the day's job notes, and the property map for each stop. As the day progresses, dispatch sees the crew's live GPS location relative to the route and can see if they're running ahead or behind so the office can give customers accurate ETAs.

If a job runs long, gets canceled, or a new emergency call comes in, you can re-optimize the rest of the day in seconds. Add the new emergency stop, hit re-optimize, and the remaining route reshuffles around real-time traffic and the crew's current location. The crew gets the updated plan pushed to their phone immediately, no phone call required.

What it does

  • Optimal stop order calculated by drive time and live traffic
  • Drag-to-reorder with live ETA recalculation
  • Per-crew daily routes color-coded across multiple crews
  • One-tap dispatch to crew mobile apps with native navigation
  • Live GPS tracking against the planned route
  • Re-optimize mid-day when emergencies or cancellations hit
  • Estimated total drive time and miles for the day
  • Customer ETA notifications auto-sent based on crew progress

How It Works

  1. Schedule jobs to a crew on a date in the standard calendar view.
  2. Open the route planner for that crew and date — ArborDash builds the optimized sequence.
  3. Tweak the order if needed (drag stops up or down) and review total drive time.
  4. Hit dispatch — the route lands on the crew's phone with native turn-by-turn navigation.
  5. Customers get auto-ETA texts as the crew progresses. Re-optimize mid-day if anything changes.

Related Features

Scheduling & Calendar Crew Management Mobile Apps Property Mapping SMS Texting Time Tracking

Cut crew drive time. Get more jobs done per day.

Plan smarter routes in seconds, dispatch in one tap, and re-optimize on the fly. Try ArborDash free for 14 days.

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Common Questions

Route Optimization FAQ

Does it use live traffic?
Yes — route times are calculated using current traffic conditions, so the proposed sequence accounts for the morning rush, school zones, and seasonal traffic patterns at the time you're planning.
Can I lock specific stops in place?
Yes. If a job has a fixed time window (the customer needs you between 10 and noon, or you need to coordinate with another crew at 2pm), you can pin that stop to a time slot and the optimizer will route the rest of the day around it.
What happens when an emergency call comes in mid-day?
Add the emergency stop to the route and hit re-optimize. The remaining stops are resequenced around the crew's current GPS location and the new emergency address. The updated route pushes to the crew's phone instantly.
Can multiple crews share the same job pool?
Yes — you can balance jobs across crews so the optimizer assigns work to whichever crew gets there fastest. Useful for large operations with overlapping service areas.
Does it work for snow plowing or other multi-stop services?
Yes. Route optimization isn't tree-specific — it works for any multi-stop service work. Tree care companies that diversify into snow removal or seasonal services use the same system.