A new vehicle routing and scheduling system to help transport planners comply with the London Lorry Control Scheme (LLCS) and other time-sensitive road restrictions has been developed.

Paragon Route Control will enable planners to build compliant routes, cutting the time spent on manual planning, reducing the need for route deviations, minimising the impact of the LLCS and major public events on routing and scheduling, and lowering the risk of incurring penalty fines.

Since the LLCS was first introduced, Paragon said transport offices wanting to optimise their fleet operations in the Greater London area have struggled to create feasible plans that take into account the large number of time-related lorry restrictions.

“When a driver deviates from the prescribed route, fleet monitoring systems flag that journey as an exception, and the transport office has to manually check if it should be recorded as a breach or not,” said Phil Ingham, Paragon’s support director. “With Paragon Route Control, our customers can create rules that apply approved route deviations at specific times of the day, week or month by truck type, reducing the number of manual interventions required by the transport planner.”

Paragon added that the LLCS is not the only source of time-sensitive route constraints. In addition to local authority HGV restrictions, other off-route exceptions include prioritising the safest route over the quickest route, for instance avoiding roads around a school during child drop-off and pick up times. Events can also trigger exceptions, such as regular sports fixtures or concerts.

“We have spent a lot of time talking to our customers about the challenges they face in building realistic routes for their drivers”, added Ingham. “Paragon Route Control provides a means for companies scheduling daily delivery routes into London to automatically create routes that comply with the LLCS, without compromising the overall efficiency of their route optimisation process. And it’s not just for London. Other cities all over the world suffer from similar types of restrictions, which is why we believe Route Control is a game-changer for delivery operations globally.”

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