Automatic Dwelling and Block Time
As we know, dwelling time (garage to door, or the time it takes to get to the first pickup location) and block time (door to garage, or the time it takes to get back after the last drop) can often be important, Even if you aren’t charging for this time, it is helpful to dispatch.
For zoned (flat rate trips), it’s easy to put in the dwelling and block time when you set up the zone time (and rate). But what about hourly trips?
If you have already added your cities, then it’s easy.
Simply navigate to Maintain…City Codes, and select the General tab. Now pick a city, and click on Edit.
You can now enter the dwelling time and block time (labeled as “Travel Time To:” and “Travel Time Back:”) in the appropriate spots. Note that Travel Time is always in minutes.
In our example, we picked West Chester, PA 19380. Since West Chester, PA has multiple zip codes, we checked the boxes “Apply to Same City And State” and it populated the travel times for all the other zip codes in our system for West Chester, PA.
For zoned (flat rate trips), it’s easy to put in the dwelling and block time when you set up the zone time (and rate). But what about hourly trips?
If you have already added your cities, then it’s easy.
Simply navigate to Maintain…City Codes, and select the General tab. Now pick a city, and click on Edit.
You can now enter the dwelling time and block time (labeled as “Travel Time To:” and “Travel Time Back:”) in the appropriate spots. Note that Travel Time is always in minutes.
In our example, we picked West Chester, PA 19380. Since West Chester, PA has multiple zip codes, we checked the boxes “Apply to Same City And State” and it populated the travel times for all the other zip codes in our system for West Chester, PA.
Now when you enter an hourly trip, if this city is added as the first pickup location, it will automatically add the dwelling time (30 minutes, in our example) to the trip; if it is the last drop off, it will add it automatically to the block time. (Note that since you generally don’t enter the routing until after the pickup time screen, you will not see it when you first enter your times. But when you save the trip, it will be there).