Walking routes versus driving routes
Walking routes have stops metres apart, so ordering matters and distance barely does. Driving routes have real travel cost between stops, so distance dominates and the order follows from it. Trades differ: pest and alarms often walk a subdivision, while solar and roofing frequently drive between appointments, and the planning is not transferable.
Different constraints, different plans
On foot the limiting factor is deciding and the day is dense. Driving, the limiting factor is travel time and the day is a small number of high-value stops. A plan built for one is close to useless for the other.
Which one your trade is
Pest control usually walks. Solar and roofing frequently drive between sits. Alarms sit somewhere between depending on the company. Advice that does not name which mode it assumes is worth discounting.
Mixed days
Plenty of reps drive to a neighbourhood then walk it. Those are two planning problems stacked, and the common error is applying driving logic to the walking half once you arrive.
Common questions
- Which trades walk and which drive?
- Pest control mostly walks; solar and roofing more often drive between appointments. Alarms varies by company.
- Can one tool do both?
- It has to treat them differently. A single distance-minimising algorithm applied to both produces a bad walking order.
- Does KnockMode plan driving routes?
- It orders doors and works offline. It is built around walking a street rather than optimising a drive between appointments.
More on routes
Planning the walk: ordering doors, cutting dead time between them, and route tools compared.
- Route planning for door-to-door
- What route optimisation actually saves you
- Why nearest-door-first beats a planned list
- How many doors belong in one route
- Route planning apps for field reps
- Using Google Maps to knock, and where it breaks
- Multi-stop route planners compared
- Free route planning for reps
- Taking a whole block at once