Routing in party rentals is about more than finding the shortest path between two points.
Good routing also has to account for event start times, customer delivery windows, setup time, traffic conditions, pickup schedules, and the equipment your crew is carrying.
In party rentals, the smartest route is the one that accounts for the whole delivery day: timing, equipment, customer priority, truck loading, pickups, and road conditions.
That is where the right system makes a difference.
TL;DR
- Good party rental routing should account for event start times, delivery windows, setup and takedown time, pickups, truck assignments, and drive time
- Efficient routing helps reduce unnecessary miles, fuel costs, labor hours, and dead time
- Better routing can also improve turnaround time, giving your business a better chance of completing more orders without adding more vehicles or labor
- Party rental software can help build efficient routes faster than manual methods, reducing the chance of manual errors while still giving operators full control over adjustments
Why Routing Matters in a Party Rental Business
Routing matters because every delivery day has a time limit. You only have so many trucks, so many hours, and so much room for error before you fall behind, and that’s a disaster for your business.
Inefficient routing does not just waste fuel. It can create late deliveries, unhappy customers, and overtime labor. And falling behind schedule early in the day domino through every stop after it. And once you fall behind, it’s pretty much a given that you’re not going to catch back up.
Optimizing delivery routes gives you a better shot at keeping the schedule intact from the first stop to the last pickup.
Why Party Rental Delivery Routing Is About More Than Distance
Distance matters. No rental owner wants crews wasting miles, burning extra fuel, or driving back and forth across town for no reason.
But party rental delivery routing has more variables than mileage.
A regular map can show you which stop is closest. It can estimate drive time. It can also help you estimate drive time and avoid traffic.
But it does not understand the full delivery day. It does not know which event starts first, which setup needs the most time, and which pickups have to fit into the schedule.
For example, the closest delivery may be a simple backyard party that starts later in the day. Meanwhile, a school field day across town may need to be fully set up before students arrive in the morning. In that case, the farther stop may need to happen first because the schedule demands it.
That is the difference between basic directions and real routing. Directions tell you where to drive. Good routing helps you decide the order that makes the whole day work.
What to Consider When Routing Multiple Deliveries
Good routing starts before the truck leaves the warehouse.
Drive time is obviously the biggest factor in how to schedule your stops, but to build the most efficient route possible there are other considerations that need to be made.
These are some other variables you should build your route around before you head out on the road:
Assign a Setup and Takedown Time for Each Item in Your Inventory
Before you can build an efficient route, you need to know how long each delivery will take. That starts with assigning a setup and takedown time to every item in your inventory. Without those time estimates attached to each item, you are just guessing.
Event Start Times and Setup Requirements
Setup time varies depending on what the job requires. Delivering and setting up an inflatable and a yard games will not take as long as an event where you’ll be setting up tents, tables, and chairs.
That time difference has to be factored into the route before the truck leaves, not figured out when the crew is already on-site and running behind. And those setup windows have to line up with when each event actually starts — a longer setup means the crew needs to arrive earlier, which will affect how the other stops are built into the route.
Prepping for busy season? Check out our complete guide covering how to prepare for peak season in your party rental business.
Group Your Stops as Drop-Offs or Pickups
Whether your stop is to deliver a bounce house for a party happening that day or to pick one up after the even has ended makes a difference in how you should route.
Drop-offs are time-sensitive. The customer is expecting you, the event has a start time, and the setup has to be done before guests arrive. This means that being late to a drop-off has consequences.
Pickups are different. The event is over, the equipment is sitting idle, and the customer is probably not watching the clock waiting for you to arrive. That difference matters when you are building the route because it means pickups can be scheduled around the drop-offs rather than competing with them. Get your drop-offs scheduled first, then fit the pickups in where they make sense.
And if need be, you can leave the pickups for an extra day.
Know Whether the Event Is at a Private Location or a Public Space
The type of location where the event is being held also should be considered when building your route. A private residence or a rented venue usually means the customer is already present, and your equipment is being “watched” once it is unloaded.
A public space like a park is a different situation. You do not want your equipment sitting unattended in an open area for an extended period of time. As a general rule, try not to arrive more than an hour before the event starts at a public location. That window keeps your equipment secure and your crew from waiting around while they’re on the clock.
How ERS Helps Simplify Party Rental Delivery Routing
Routing a busy Saturday involves a lot of moving parts, and keeping track of all of them manually requires a big time investment and leaves a lot of room for mistakes.
This is where Event Rental Systems can help.
ERS software simplifies your routing flow by giving you the option to assign a setup and takedown time to each item in your inventory. When you build out your delivery day, the system automatically uses those times to calculate how long each stop will take so you are not estimating on the fly.
In the route building interface, the start time, delivery window, setup time, take down time, and estimated arrival time for each event is displayed. Additionally, each stop is marked as either a drop-off or a pickup, and you can also mark which events are taking place at a public location. If your route setup has a late arrival, that stop will be displayed in red, giving you a clear indication to make adjustments in order to make each delivery on-time.
The routing system uses all of that known information to help build a smarter route:
- Event start and end times
- Delivery windows
- Setup and takedown time
- Estimated drive time
But the operator is still in control. If a stop needs to move to a different truck or the order needs to be adjusted, routes can be rearranged with drag-and-drop ease instead of rebuilding the whole schedule from scratch.
All of your stops are plotted on a Google Map for each truck, so you can see the full picture of the delivery day in one view rather than piecing it together from a spreadsheet.
And because ERS tracks the miles driven for each route, you can run mileage reports at any time for tax deduction purposes.
If you want to see how ERS handles routing for your operation, schedule a demo and we will walk you through it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Is Routing Important for Party Rental Businesses?
Good routing is important for party rental businesses because it helps crews complete deliveries and pickups more efficiently. Instead of simply choosing the shortest drive, a route should be planned that accounts for event times, delivery windows, setup and takedown needs, and pickup schedules.
Proper route planning can can reduce unnecessary miles, lower fuel costs, and cut down on labor hours. It can also improve turnaround time, allowing trucks and crews to complete more stops in less time, which gives your business a better chance of handling more orders without adding more vehicles or labor.
What Should I Consider When Planning Party Rental Delivery Routes?
Building an efficient party rental delivery route will require more consideration than just the shortest distance between stops.
Other variables that you should factor into your route are: how long each job will take based on setup and takedown requirements, event start times, whether each stop is a drop-off or a pickup, and whether the event is at a private location or a public space.
Can Party Rental Software Help With Routing?
Yes. Party rental software like Event Rental Systems will take all of those variables into account when building your route (event start times, delivery windows, setup and takedown times, drop-offs, pickups, and truck assignments) so you do not have to juggle all of that manually.
ERS uses that information to help you build a more efficient route, while still giving you full control to adjust stop order and truck assignments when needed. For operators who are used to piecing the schedule together by hand, it is less prone to mistakes and far less time consuming.
