Best Snow Plow Routing Apps

Apps for Determining Efficient Snowplowing Routes

You can do the same thing for free, but don’t you have better things to do with your time?

In “Snow Plowing Tips from a Pro,” we share advice from the owner of a successful snowplow business with over 40 years of experience. When you read his useful snowplowing tips—short, to-the-point recommendations—you’ll see that his focus is on maximizing profit and happy customers. And he emphasizes that time is money.

Determining the route you take for snowplowing starts with a map. And it’s probably going to be digital because paper marks are difficult to find and printing one from the computer involves taping a bunch of sheets together. Don’t even bother. If you’re bound and determined not to go digital, check your local town or county government to see if they have a map that shows streets. With that in hand, you can mark your client locations, and the most efficient route will materialize. All you have to do, then, is write it all down, so you know where to go in what order.

If you cannot get a map that shows all the local roads and streets, Google Maps allows you to zoom in close enough to see house numbers. It allows you to pinpoint a limited number of stops, and it’s free. But it’s limited because it’s not designed for a business person. A better system is to go to your app store on your phone and search for “delivery route planners.” No, snowplowing isn’t like delivering flowers, but it still involves following an efficient route to save both time and gas. By saying “delivery,” you can bypass some of the family vacation-type apps.

More route planner apps are available than you may have guessed, and they aren’t all free. Most, however, have a free trial period. Use that to try several apps before settling on one. These apps can make your route planning simpler. Some will also allow you to track subcontractors if you have any.

Among the highly rated “delivery” route-planner apps are:

Circuit Route Planner: optimizes up to 500 stops, including ways to avoid traffic, can add destinations verbally, allows you to plug in the amount of time at each stop and gives you arrival estimates, you can mark priority stops to get them done first

Droppath Route Planner: a simple system that allows you to input addresses and then gives you the optimal route – or you can set your own order; you can also paste in a list of destinations or input a CSV file with addresses and print out itinerary or email routes to others

PlaceMaker Route Planner: has a text scanner option, allows you to sort by distance from your current location, manually sort addresses, or let the system optimize stops, allows you to share with others through Google Drive, so changes are seen by your whole crew

Route Planner, My Way, Delivery: optimizes your route and allows you to upload a picture of the finished project (very helpful when snow is falling faster than you can plow it, to show you did indeed plow), builds routes based on traffic conditions, set priority stops

Route4Me: shows you the routes on a map on your phone and allows you to both optimize routes and insert on-the-go additional stops

Straightaway Powered by Mapbox: scans addresses with a phone camera, includes traffic changes, road closures, and weather conditions; optimizes your route and can give you audio directions

Zeo Route Planner:  Voice-enabled input or import from Excel-type files, analyzes “end trip” or post trip details, so you can track performance, allows daily, monthly, and yearly access