PASS Logistics Solutions (PLS) AG is expanding its planning and optimization tool, PASS MAPS, to include features for route planning for electric vehicles. This expansion is based, in part, on a newly integrated forecasting tool that enables more accurate range calculations for electric trucks.
Electric vehicles present logistics companies with new challenges in route planning. Limited ranges, charging times, and vehicle-specific energy consumption must be taken into account in order to plan routes economically and reliably.
With the solutions PLANTOUR, MAPSERVICES, and PASS MAPS, PASS Logistics Solutions offers powerful route optimization software for logistics, field service, and passenger transport. In the planning and optimization tool PASS MAPS, routes can be quickly created and efficiently optimized. Planning data can be entered directly into the user interface or imported via Excel, for example.
A new feature is the integration of electric vehicles into route planning: The software takes vehicle-specific parameters such as state of charge (SoC), state of health (SoH), and payload into account and combines them with route-specific factors such as elevation profile and speeds along the route. Based on this, the state of charge progression for the entire route is calculated, and the system determines whether the route can be completed without a stop to recharge.
If a recharge is necessary, it takes place at defined stops along the route. For these stops, the system calculates how long the vehicle needs to be charged – taking into account the available charging power – to safely reach the next destination with a defined remaining state of charge.
Range forecasts for realistic planning
For route planning of electric trucks, PASS has integrated Robert Bosch GmbH’s Energy consumption prediction into PASS MAPS via an interface. The underlying models take vehicle- and battery-specific data into account and enable realistic forecasts of energy consumption along planned routes.
As a leading automotive supplier, Bosch possesses extensive experience and a deep technical understanding of the system – a crucial foundation for realistic range and consumption forecasts in operational use.
Based on this, the route optimization feature automatically analyzes relevant planning parameters and quickly calculates suitable routes. This provides dispatchers with reliable plans for electric fleets and enables them to respond flexibly to changes.
New challenges in logistics
With the increasing use of electric vehicles, the requirements for operational planning in logistics companies are also changing. Factors such as charging infrastructure, energy consumption, and range must be more closely integrated into existing planning processes. Dedicated features help companies efficiently incorporate electric fleets into their route planning.
PASS Logistics Solutions offers its solutions either as a cloud-based service or as an on-premises operation from its own data centers in Germany. Computation- and storage-intensive processes are executed in the PASS Cloud, combining lower hardware requirements with high scalability and data security.
The web-based optimization tool PASS MAPS from PASS Logistics Solutions AG