Less travel only matters when the released time reaches clients and teams. Measure kilometres, punctuality, continuity and workload together.
Build a small scorecard
Start with five measures: travel per delivered hour, visits within the agreed window, client continuity, spread of finish times and corrections after the route proposal. No measure is a target alone. Together they show whether a shorter route quietly creates pressure or reduces reliability.
Make the comparison fair
Compare the same weekdays, seasons and working areas, recording changes in demand or staffing. Use a period long enough to smooth accidental congestion or absence. Segmentation matters: a rural route with long distances should not be judged against a compact urban route.
Investigate the variance
A worse score starts an investigation. Review source data, exceptions and changes planners made afterwards. Connect qualitative feedback to the figures and change only one important rule at a time. This reveals the effect and avoids a dashboard that merely optimises behaviour around the measure.
