Adjacent Plots
For some time we have been aware that improvements were needed to increase the accuracy of plot to plot pricing and to improve the way in which drivers are suggested or ranked for jobs. With this in mind we have developed the new Adjacent Plots feature.
Journey times and distances
Adjacent plots uses cumulative totals to extrapolate more accurate routed journey distances and times. For example, if it takes 2 minutes to get from Base to Plot F and it takes 10 minutes to get from Plot F to Plot G, the total travel time from Base to Plot G will be 2 minutes + 10 minutes = 12 minutes.
Adjacent Plots doesnt just deal with journey times, it also allows you to set plot to plot fixed distances. Navigator will also use these to extrapolate cumulative distances. Hence if it is 0.4 miles from Base to Plot F and 2.5 miles from Plot F to Plot G, the cumulative distance from Base to Plot G is 2.9 miles.
You dont have to enter all the plot to plot times and distances because the system is clever enough to extrapolate other journey times and distances as you build up the information. However, the more plot to plot journey times and distances you enter, the more accurate the information will become.
Feeder plots or ranking
The other big benefit of Adjacent Plots is the ability to specify actual Feeder Plots rather that just a Feeder Plot Radius for suggesting or ranking drivers.
Up until now, you were only able to specify a general radius around the pickup plot, for example if a job came up in Blackhorse you could say to Navigator that if there are no clear drivers in this plot, any drivers within a 2 mile radius could be deemed suitable for the job. The problem with this was it didnt take into account natural boundaries such as railway lines, rivers or one-way systems! So a car may appear to be only ½ mile away from the pickup plot but it might actually be a 5 mile round journey to get there! Not anymore! Adjacent Plots allows you to specify exactly which plots would be deemed suitable when suggesting a driver for work.
Adjacent Plots also allows you to make allowances for slow journeys or bottlenecks. For example, even though a car is only 2.3 miles away from a pickup location it might actually take him 20 minutes to get there because of a particularly busy intersection, and it might be better to send a driver who is further away purely because he/she has a straight run there with no possible hold-ups inbetween.
Setting plot to plot travel times and distances
OK, lets take a look at the Adjacent Plots window and familiarise ourselves with it and then well look at how we enter the plot to plot travel times and distances
1. Click on the Plots menu and choose Adjacent Plots
2. The Adjacent Plots Set-up window will appear
The general idea behind this window is to work your way all the way down the list of plots in the left-hand To Plot window, setting the plot to plot journey times and distances for the first 6 or 7 plots in the right-hand From Plot window
!? Still with us?
3. Select the first local plot from the To Plot list (left-hand side) and the From plots will appear in the right-hand windows.
Click on the Plots menu and choose Adjacent Plots
Any plot shown in bold type is the Primary Plot of the Zone it belongs to
4. Youll notice that the first plot listed in both windows are the same, so ignore the first plot in the list and select the first local plot in the right-hand From Plot list
5. Next enter the plot to plot travel time in minutes followed by the plot to plot distance in either metres or miles whichever you prefer working with. Note that if you enter the distance in metres it is set to multiples of 10 metres and a zero is automatically added to the end, so if you want to enter 300 just type 30 and Navigator will add the last zero for you.
6. Select the next local plot down and enter the plot to plot travel time and distances
7. Continue this process for the first 6 or 7 plots in the From Plot list
8. Now select the next local plot down in the To Plot list
This might seem like a long and tedious process, but at least you dont have to enter every single plot to plot time and distance because Navigator will extrapolate the rest from the small sample youre giving it. However, the more you do enter, the more accurate it will be!
Setting the feeder plots
Now you can start to specify the feeder plots for any work coming up in this plot. In other words, which plots behave as ranks for this plot. So if a job was to come up in Bakers Arms and there were no clear drivers in Bakers Arms, which plot would be looked in first for a clear driver, and if there were no clear drivers there, where should Navigator look next and so on.
The feeder plots are listed in ascending travel time order in the Feeder Plots window and you can decide how many of plots within the shortest travel time can be checked for clear drivers. Remember this is all about travel times not
Continue entering the plot to plot times and distances for the first 6 or 7 plots in the list
Select the next plot down in the To Plot list
Repeat the process again for the first 6 or 7 plots in the From Plot list enter the travel times and distances
distances, so even though Whipps Cross might be closer in distance to Bakers Arms, Markhouse would be the better plot to pull a driver from because the travel time from Markhouse to Bakers Arms is shorter than the travel time from Whipps Cross to Bakers Arms! Still with us?
Using (routed) adjacent plot fixed distances and travel time feeders
Theres a setting in System Preferences that needs to be turned on in order for Navigator to use all the adjacent plot fixed distances that youve just spent ages entering, please refer to Use settings in adjacent plots for more information.