TreeBossPro Blog — Tree Service Software

Route Maps and Auto-Routing for Tree Crews

A tree crew rolls out with a lot of iron behind it: a chip truck, a chipper, maybe a bucket truck, a trailer with a loader. That rig is expensive to move and slow through traffic. Every unnecessary cross-town drive costs fuel, wear and an hour the crew could have been working.

Routing doesn't sound exciting, but for a tree company it's one of the easiest places to find time.

Why Routing Matters More for Tree Crews

In Never Forget the Stump: Scheduling Grinding After Every Removal, the stump grinder's day worked best as a tight route of nearby stops. The same logic applies to every crew, with the added problem that a removal crew's equipment is big, slow and hard to park.

Routing for tree work isn't only about the shortest path. It's about doing the work in an order that makes sense: the big removal first while the crew is fresh, the small prune on the way back, the PHC visits in a loop that doesn't backtrack.

See the Day on a Map

TreeBossPro shows scheduled jobs on a route map, so the scheduler can see the day geographically instead of as a list of addresses. Clusters jump out. So do outliers: the single pruning job forty minutes away that would be better moved to the week you have a removal in that area.

When booking new work, look at the map first. A new lead near Thursday's jobs is a good candidate for a Thursday estimate. An approved prune near next week's removal can ride along.

Let Auto-Routing Order the Stops

Once a crew's jobs are set for the day, auto-routing puts them in a sensible order. The crew sees the route in the crew app, in order, with notes and gate codes for each stop.

Auto-routing gives you a starting point, not a command. If a customer needs the crew before noon, or a removal should go first so the bucket truck can leave for another job, the scheduler can adjust the order. The crew always knows what's next without calling.

Route Each Kind of Crew Differently

Different crews have different days. Removal crews often have one or two stops, so routing is more about which jobs share a day. Pruning crews may have four or five. Stump grinders and PHC applicators can have many short stops, where good routing saves the most time.

Plan each crew's route on its own terms. Don't send the stump grinder across town twice because the removal crew's schedule made sense that way.

Think about where each day ends, too. A removal crew with a full chip truck needs to dump somewhere. If the last stop is close to where you dump chips or stack logs, the crew finishes faster. Write the dump location in the crew's notes or the last job's notes so the route makes sense end to end.

For a PHC applicator, the order of stops can also depend on weather and timing. Treatments that need dry leaves or mild temperatures may need to go earlier or later in the day. The applicator knows their products; the route should give them room to make that call.

Routing and Customer Communication

Good routes make better arrival times. When the stops are in a sensible order, the on-the-way alert from the crew app is accurate, and the customer isn't left waiting all morning. Customers who chose live updates in the customer app can watch the crew map on service day.

When the day changes — a removal runs long, a storm call comes in — the office can see where crews are on the board and re-plan, then let affected customers know.

Build Routes Into How You Sell

The best routing happens before the job is scheduled. Encourage estimators to book visits in clusters, and offer flexible customers a date when you're already in their area. A pruning customer who doesn't care which week will happily take the date that fits your route.

Recurring work is especially easy to route. Pruning cycles and PHC program visits don't usually need an exact date, so you can place them on days when the crew is already nearby. Over time, routing shapes your service area. You'll see where your work clusters and where you're driving too far for too little. Route maps and auto-routing are part of TreeBossPro tree service software on every plan. The next article looks at what the crew sees when they follow that route: the crew app.