Route Density and How to Build a Tight Pool Route
Route density is how close your stops sit to each other. Learn to measure drive minutes, price outliers and take new pools that tighten your route.
Route density is how close your stops are to each other. A dense route spends more of the day at pools and less in the truck. A spread-out route pays for the same visits with more fuel, more hours and more wear on the truck.
You can measure it with one number: average drive minutes between stops.
The cost of a drive minute
A drive minute costs what a route minute costs. If your cost per route hour is $57 (the example from how to price weekly pool service), a route minute is $57 / 60 = $0.95.
Example: two routes with 10 stops each. All numbers are illustrations.
| Route A | Route B | |
|---|---|---|
| Stops | 10 | 10 |
| Average drive between stops | 6 min | 14 min |
| Hops between stops | 9 | 9 |
| Drive time in a day | 54 min | 126 min |
| Drive cost at $0.95 a minute | $51.30 | $119.70 |
Same pools and same prices. Route B loses 72 minutes and about $68 a day to driving. At 35 minutes per stop, 72 minutes is room for two more stops. Over a five-day week the gap is 360 minutes, or 6 hours.
Count the drive from home to the first stop and from the last stop back too. Those hops are easy to forget.
Drive share of the day
A second number helps: drive share = drive minutes / (drive minutes + on-site minutes). In the example, say you spend 30 minutes at each of the 10 stops, which is 300 minutes.
- Route A: 54 / (54 + 300) = about 15% of the day driving
- Route B: 126 / (126 + 300) = about 30% of the day driving
Every point of drive share is a point of the day that earns nothing. Track yours monthly. If it creeps up, the route has drifted.
Measure yours
- Pull up a week of stops with arrival times from your service reports or phone.
- Write down the drive minutes between each pair of stops.
- Average them by day and by zone.
- Mark the longest hops. Those accounts are your outliers.
If you cannot get drive times from your records, ride one full route day with a timer and write them down.
Build density with zones
- Give each route day a zone. A cluster of neighborhoods that sit within a short drive of each other. Monday is the north side, Tuesday is the lake area, and so on.
- Hold new accounts to the zone with an opening. Do not put a stop in Monday's zone on Thursday because Thursday had a gap.
- Order stops in a loop. See route order basics.
- Keep a waiting list by zone. When a day opens up, fill it from the list for that zone.
Example: say you have 40 accounts. Sorting them by drive time gives four clusters of 10, and each cluster becomes a route day. If 6 of the 40 sit outside any cluster, those 6 are your repricing and swap candidates, and a far-off new lead is an easy no.
Measure zones by drive time. City names can mislead, since a river, a freeway or a gated community can put two neighbors 20 minutes apart.
A simple rule for new accounts
| Where the pool sits | What to do |
|---|---|
| Inside a zone you already serve, with an opening that day | Standard price |
| Next to a zone, adds a few minutes to that day | Standard price plus a travel adjustment |
| Far from every route day | Quote the extra drive, or pass |
The travel adjustment is extra drive minutes per visit x your cost per route minute. Example: 12 extra minutes x $0.95 = $11.40 per visit, or about $49 a month at 4.33 visits. Say the number plainly when you quote. Some customers will pay it, and the ones who will not were never going to be profitable.
Fix a route that is already spread out
- Rank accounts by the drive they cause. For each stop, compare the day's drive time with the stop and without it.
- Reprice first. The accounts with the longest hops and the lowest prices come first. Raising prices without losing customers covers how.
- Look for swaps. If another owner's zone overlaps yours, trading accounts can tighten both routes. Put any swap in writing and ask a local attorney how customer consent and notice should be handled where you work.
- Drop accounts last. Give the notice your agreement requires and refer the customer to someone nearby if you can.
Mistakes people make
- Taking every lead because the monthly revenue looks good. A pool far from your route can lose money after drive time.
- Filling gaps with whoever calls. A full route that is spread out earns less than a smaller route that is tight.
- Ignoring the first and last drive of the day. They count as route time.
- Never re-checking. Routes drift as customers come and go. Re-measure drive minutes every few months.
Check what density is worth
Run your current route through the route profit calculator, then change the average drive minutes and see what it does to profit per day. That number tells you how much a tighter route is worth to you, and how much of a travel surcharge to ask from outlying accounts.
Common questions
What is route density in pool service?
It is how close your stops are to each other. A dense route spends more of the day at pools and less in the truck. The simplest measure is average drive minutes between stops.
Should I turn down a pool that is far from my route?
Not automatically. Work out the extra drive minutes per visit, multiply by your cost per route minute, and quote that on top of your normal price. If the customer will not pay it, passing may be the profitable choice.
How do I tighten a route that is already spread out?
Find the accounts that cause the longest hops, reprice the ones that lose money, and fill open days only from the zones you already serve. Swapping accounts with a nearby owner can help both routes if you put it in writing.