UPS: re-plan delivery routes before peak

Re-plan every driver’s route before peak volume arrives, and cut the miles each one runs.

By OneShot · Updated October 23, 2026

Read the solution ↓

What the workflow produces

Peak route plan

Stops and vehicles: Stops with volume, window and location; vehicles with capacity and shift.
Routes: Stop order per vehicle, with planned miles and hours.
Change: Miles and hours against the current routes, by route.
Results: Actual miles and missed windows in the first two weeks.

The documented problem

In its 2013 annual report, UPS wrote that “a reduction of just one mile a day per driver” would “save UPS up to $50 million a year.” The same report describes its own route-optimization software, in testing since 2008, which finds the optimal route for each delivery while meeting service commitments, and set the goal of reaching every U.S. route by 2017. In the fourth quarter of 2013, heavier-than-anticipated volume, bad weather and a compressed holiday season added about $125 million to $150 million in extra costs.

UPS’s 2016 annual report says the first phase of that software was complete and generating more than $400 million in annual cost savings and avoidance. These are UPS’s own figures from its own system. The OneShot workflow below re-plans the routes of a delivery operation before its peak.

UPS 2013 Annual ReportPrimary source · Checked 2026-10-23
UPS 2016 Annual ReportPrimary source · Checked 2026-10-23

The OneShot solution

Delivery routes re-planned before peak

Re-plan every delivery route before peak, so each driver runs fewer miles a day and every delivery window holds.

What it pays back

Miles cut per driver per day

Counted per route, planned miles against the same stops on the old route.

EstimateUp to $50M a year for each mile cut per driver per dayBasis: UPS’s own figure of up to $50 million a year for one mile a day per driver, at UPS’s scale.

Work enters the queue: The peak volume forecast, a new delivery area, a depot change or a route that misses its windows two days running.
Decision owner: Depot operations manager

01
Load the stops and vehicles
Read each depot’s vehicles with capacity and shift length, and the stops on a typical peak day with parcel volume, delivery window and time on site. Resolve every address to a precise location; addresses that do not resolve go back to the depot.
- Place Resolve
- Route plans and delivery records
02
Measure the roads
Get the driving time and distance between every pair of stops for the hour each route runs. Times for roads that close or slow in peak come from the depot’s own records.
- Road travel times
- Route plans and delivery records
03
Solve the routes
The OneShot agent uses its optimization tool to assign stops to vehicles and order each route for the fewest miles, within each vehicle’s capacity, each driver’s shift and each delivery window. It reports the plan’s miles against the current routes, route by route.
04
Get the plan approved
Give the depot operations manager the new routes, the miles and hours they change and the stops that move between drivers. Record the approved plan, and any route the manager keeps as it is with the reason.
- Route plans and delivery records
05
Roll out and compare
Send each supervisor the new routes by email before the start date. Compare each route’s actual miles and missed windows with the plan for two weeks; a route that misses its windows is solved again on actual times.
- Email
- Email Inbox
- Route plans and delivery records

What counts as complete

Every route in the depot runs on the approved plan before peak, with its actual miles and missed windows recorded against the plan.

Decisions and exceptions

A plan that misses a delivery window or breaks a shift limit is not sent.
What drivers know about a road goes into the plan before rollout.
Route bids and labor rules stay with the depot under its labor agreements.

What to measure

Miles per driver per day
Missed delivery windows
Stops per hour
Routes solved again after rollout

Establish the baseline and review period before launch. Compare completed cases, unresolved work and reviewer corrections against the same scope.

The agent’s tool basket

OneShot gives its agents the tools to analyze records, communicate, research and act on authorized business data. The platform carries the workflow from the first action through to the recorded result.

Route plans and delivery records
Read vehicles, shifts, stops, delivery windows and the miles each route ran; record approved route changes.
Road travel times
Return driving time and distance between every pair of stops for the hour a route runs.