Route optimization: between illusion and reality
- October 27, 2025
- 3 mins
Route optimization is often presented as the ultimate solution, a miracle capable of cutting costs, improving service quality, and easing operational workloads. With impressive figures and bold promises, software providers paint a picture of a logistics revolution where everything becomes simpler, faster, and more profitable. But in reality, things on the field are often far more complex. Behind the marketing buzz lie major challenges: incomplete or inconsistent data, operational constraints that are hard to formalize, and the everyday unpredictability of logistics. These obstacles can quickly turn an optimization project into a source of frustration, or even failure.
This article explores the gap between myth and reality, sharing lessons learned from real-world projects, from instructive failures to outstanding successes. The goal? To help you understand what route optimization truly entails, so you can make your own project a real success.
Route optimization: myth vs. reality on the field
The promises of route optimization
When it comes to route optimization, marketing messages are rarely nuanced. No matter the provider, the promises tend to sound the same, and they’re certainly appealing:
20 to 30% reduction in OPEX costs
Improved service quality, with significantly higher NPS
Major time savings thanks to near-automatic planning
A drastically smaller carbon footprint, through shorter routes and better fleet utilization
In other words, a miracle solution that does everything faster, better, and cheaper, at the click of a button.
These promises sound so good that you might wonder why every company hasn’t already jumped on board. Yet, despite the genuine potential of these tools, large-scale route optimization projects often remain rare… or disappointing in practice.
Route optimization in practice
Once you move past the appealing promises, implementing route optimization meets the hard reality of day-to-day operations, and that reality is often far more complex than expected.
Here are some of the main challenges organizations typically face:
1. Poor data quality
Route optimization relies entirely on the quality of the data provided. In many cases:
Addresses are incorrectly entered,
Volumes or weights are wrong,
Crucial information is simply missing.
The result: an optimized route based on faulty data is unlikely to be reliable. The adage “garbage in, garbage out” couldn’t be more true.
2. Constraints known only to operations teams
Some logistical rules exist only in the minds of operations managers. These are habits or adjustments based on experience:
“Officially, this customer can be delivered between 12 PM and 2 PM, but in reality, they’re always available from 11 AM…”
These essential details are often not captured in systems, making generated plans incomplete or unrealistic for field teams.
3. Numerous real-time disruptions
The real world rarely follows the planned scenario. Daily surprises include:
A driver suddenly unavailable,
A customer changing their time slot or address,
A parcel weighing 300 kg instead of 30…
Static optimization quickly becomes obsolete if no real-time adjustment mechanism is in place.
4. Highly specific business constraints
Each sector (waste collection, parcel delivery, maintenance, etc.) has its own objectives, rhythms, and constraints:
A driver delivering 120 parcels per day?
Or collecting only 4 bins?
In either case, the levers for optimization are completely different. Even between two companies in the same sector, organizational differences make a generic approach ineffective. There is no universal model.
5. Ignoring traffic conditions
Road traffic directly affects route duration and delivery punctuality, yet many solutions on the market still underestimate it.
A route may look optimal on paper but become unrealistic during peak hours or in dense urban areas. Travel time between two points can vary threefold depending on the time of day. Planning without integrating traffic conditions simply doesn’t work.
💡 For more insights, check out our special report on data in route optimization.
All these factors lead to a simple conclusion: optimization doesn’t work by default. It must be thoughtfully designed, adapted, and fed with reliable, realistic data.
Otherwise, it becomes just a visualization tool that digitalizes existing logic without delivering real gains.
In the worst cases, the project is abandoned. As Yann de Feraudy, President of France Supply Chain (Aslog) :
At best, the system ends up unused; at worst, it causes damage, and management decides never to consider such systems again…
Projects we’ll never forget
In any software provider’s journey, some projects leave a lasting mark. Not always for the same reasons, some teach us through failure, others highlight the power of perfect alignment between strategy, data, and execution.
The project that taught us everything about failure
On paper, this project had it all: planning sanitary inspection routes over several weeks, or even months, while accounting for technicians’ skills, types of samples, and site opening hours.
But very quickly, we realized we weren’t equipped to succeed… and neither were our counterparts.
The obstacles were numerous:
Missing or unusable foundational data: agent skills, visit days, site constraints, all unclear, outdated, or inconsistent
An overly ambitious initial scope: trying to consolidate all sites and activities in the first version for maximum ROI
Cultural shock: planning rules were never formalized and only existed in the planners’ heads
Lack of clear executive support: the project lost momentum with any change in leadership
Result: months of modeling, development, and work… for a project that never came to life. A painful but valuable lesson.
The project that unlocked everything
Thankfully, some projects remind us why we do this work.
This project, for a major parcel delivery player, was deployed in just two months. Goal: optimize territory sectorization and the sequencing of daily routes.
Each night, 1,500 routes are automatically generated based on the next day’s parcels. In the morning, drivers receive optimized routes, respecting opening hours and efficient sequencing.
The reasons for success were clear:
A strategic project, championed by leadership as part of a large-scale transformation
Highly prepared client teams, who anticipated impacts, trained operational staff, and cleaned up their data
Clear governance, effective internal communication, and perfectly aligned technical partners
Our role: deploy the technology correctly. When everything else is ready, things move very quickly.
Continuous route optimization solution
In summary
Route optimization is neither a magic wand nor a simple checkbox in a digital project. It’s a real profession, a careful balance between technology, data quality, a deep understanding of business constraints, and continuous adaptation to the field.
The promises are real… but they only materialize if you invest upfront, involve the right stakeholders, and build a progressive, pragmatic, and agile approach. Success comes from combining expertise, preparation, and flexibility.
In short, turning the myth into reality requires seeing route optimization as a dynamic partnership, where technology integrates into an organization ready to evolve. Only then can the anticipated benefits be realized, for more efficient, responsible, and human-centered operations.
The 5 key ingredients for a successful project:
- Clean, up-to-date, standardized data
- Clear commitment from management
- Explicit formalization of business rules
- Trained and engaged users
- Progressive deployment with continuous adjustments
💡Want to learn more about our route optimization solution?
Contact us for a demo and discover how Kardinal can support your organizational transformation.
