How Much Fuel and Dead Time Route Optimisation Actually Saves

Most diaries are built by humans squinting at a map. The result is back-and-forth driving, late jobs and a wasted hour at the end of every day. Route optimisation isn't a "nice to have" — it's a direct line back to fuel, time and revenue.

The hidden cost today

• Every extra mile is fuel, tyres and vehicle wear.
• Every extra 10 minutes of driving is a slot you can't sell.
• Late running first jobs cascade into late running last jobs.
• Office time spent re-juggling the board when one job overruns.

What Tryoup changes

Tryoup builds the diary around skills, location and live traffic. When a job moves, the board re-sorts automatically. Engineers see the optimal next stop on the mobile app instead of doubling back across the city.

A worked example

• 6 vans × 8 miles/day saved × 230 working days × £0.55/mile = ~£6,070/year in vehicle costs.
• 1 extra job per van per week × 6 vans × £150 margin × 48 weeks = ~£43,200/year in recovered revenue.
• Total annualised gain: ~£49,000/year for a 6-van team.

A simple formula

Annual saving ≈ (vans × miles saved/day × 230 × £/mile) + (vans × extra jobs/week × margin × 48)

Dead time is bigger than fuel

Fuel is the number everyone quotes, but it is the smaller half of the problem. An hour of unnecessary driving is an hour of paid labour you cannot invoice, and in a busy week it is the difference between four jobs a day and five. Price both together and route planning stops looking like a nice-to-have.

What good routing looks like day to day

• Jobs are grouped by area, not by the order the phone rang.
• Emergency callouts slot into the nearest available engineer's run, not the first name on the list.
• Recurring contract visits are anchored to a weekday and a postcode cluster.
• Live traffic reshuffles the afternoon rather than blowing up the day.

A worked example

Five engineers, each saving 45 minutes and 12 miles a day. Over 250 working days that is roughly 940 hours of recovered engineer time and 15,000 fewer miles. Even valuing the recovered time conservatively, the labour saving dwarfs the fuel — and the recovered hours are sellable capacity, not just cost.

Frequently asked questions

How much can route optimisation realistically save?

Most multi-van UK field service businesses recover 30 to 60 minutes per engineer per day and cut 10 to 20 percent of mileage once jobs are clustered by area rather than booked in call order.

Does routing work with emergency callouts?

Yes. Emergencies are inserted into the nearest engineer's run based on live location and skills, so the urgent job goes to whoever can genuinely get there first.

Do engineers need a separate satnav app?

No. The day's route opens in the engineer's mobile app and hands off to their preferred maps app for turn-by-turn directions.

Related reading

• The full savings breakdown for a field service business
• GPS tracking for field operations
• Pest control route planning for recurring contracts
• How to schedule field engineers efficiently