Orbit Plan turns a set of shipments and a fleet of vehicles into a set of efficient, ready-to-run tours — the automatic alternative to routing shipments onto tours one by one.
You can always build a Tour by hand: pick a vehicle, add shipments, order the stops. When you have many shipments to route at once, Orbit Plan does that work for you. Hand it a pool of Shipments and a fleet, and it works out which shipment rides which vehicle, in what stop order, and at what times — then presents the result as a proposed set of tours for you to review.
The most important thing to understand about Orbit Plan is that a plan is a proposal, not committed work. Running the planner changes nothing in Orbit: no tours exist yet and every shipment stays unrouted. Real Tours are created only when you apply the plan — a separate, deliberate step.
Key highlights
Plans many shipments onto tours in one optimised pass, instead of routing each by hand.
Plan against your real vehicles, reusable virtual vehicles, or a saved fleet.
Every result is a proposal you review first — nothing is committed until you apply it.
Shows per-tour utilisation, planned stop times, summary statistics, and any shipments it could not place (with the reason why).
Compare alternatives side by side using scenarios before you commit.
A plan needs vehicles to place shipments on. You can:
Add vehicles — pick real vehicles from your carriers.
Add virtual vehicles — placeholders based on a saved vehicle class, useful when you want to plan routes before deciding which carrier or vehicle will run them. See Orbit Plan: What Are Virtual Vehicles? for how these work.
Use Suggest vehicles — let Orbit propose an optimised set of virtual vehicles based on your vehicle classes.
Save any combination as a Fleet Template to reuse it in future plans.
When the optimisation finishes, Orbit Plan shows you a solution made up of three things:
Proposed tours — each with its chosen vehicle, its stops in order, planned times, and a volume and weight utilisation figure so you can see how full each vehicle is.
Unrouted shipments — any shipment the plan could not place, each shown with a plain-language reason.
Summary statistics — the number of tours, average utilisation, and total distance and duration for the plan.
These figures describe the proposed plan. Treat them as advisory estimates to judge a solution by, not promises about the real tours once they run.
A shipment landing in the unrouted list is not an error — it means the constraints as given do not allow it, and Orbit tells you why. Common reasons include no vehicle in the fleet being large enough or carrying a required capability, a time window too narrow to reach, or a tour that would run longer than its allowed maximum. The fix is usually in the data: add a suitable vehicle, widen a time window, or adjust the requirement. A plain re-run without changing anything rarely helps.
You rarely get the perfect plan on the first try. Orbit Plan lets you create several scenarios that differ in their optimisation settings, fleet composition, or shipment selection, and compare their results side by side. This lets you weigh, for example, a plan that uses fewer vehicles against one that spreads work more evenly, before deciding which to commit.
When you are happy with a scenario, apply it. Orbit Plan shows a summary of the tours it will create and the shipments it will leave unrouted, then creates the tours when you confirm (for example, Create 4 Tours). At that point the proposal becomes reality: real Tours are created, each unassigned and carrying its shipments as routed. Getting those tours to a carrier is the next stage — see Tours and Auto-Callout for dispatch.
If a few tours fail to be created when you apply, the rest are still created — the shipments from the failed tours simply stay unrouted and can be re-planned or routed by hand. Applying does not roll everything back.
Orbit Plan is about routing — which shipments go on which tour, in what order, and when. Whether a tour's loads physically fit inside the assigned vehicle's container, shown as a 3D packing view, is a separate feature: see LoadPlan 3D. A plan can optionally fold that fit-check into its optimisation, which is one reason a shipment might come back unrouted — its cargo would not fit any available vehicle.
The planned stop times you see on a proposed tour are estimates. For how Orbit expresses planned timing on a live tour, see Understanding the TimingGuide.
Mateusz plans regional deliveries for an operator in Warsaw. On Monday he has 30 unrouted shipments across Poland to organise for the week. He opens the Shipments list, selects all 30, and clicks Plan. In the Plan Shipments window he loads his saved Weekday Fleet template and starts the optimisation.
Orbit Plan proposes five tours at an average of 82% volume utilisation, and flags one shipment as unrouted because its delivery window is too narrow for any vehicle to reach in time. Mateusz widens that shipment's window and re-runs, and it now fits on the fifth tour. He also creates a second scenario with one fewer vehicle to see whether he can save a run; it works but pushes two tours close to their maximum duration, so he keeps the original. Satisfied, he applies the first scenario and clicks Create 5 Tours. Five real tours appear, each unassigned and ready to be offered to carriers.
No. Running it produces a proposal only. Tours are created — and shipments become routed — only when you apply a scenario.
Why did a shipment come back as unrouted?
Because the constraints did not allow it to be placed. Read the reason shown against it: no compatible vehicle, a time window too narrow, a tour that would run too long, and so on. Fixing the underlying data usually unblocks it.
Why weren't all my vehicles used?
That is normal and depends on the settings. A cost-minimising plan uses as few vehicles as it can and leaves others idle; a spread-the-work approach uses more. An unused vehicle is usually the plan working as configured.
Can I try different options before committing?
Yes. Create multiple scenarios with different fleets or settings and compare their results, then apply only the one you want. Nothing is committed until you apply.
Does every operator use Orbit Plan?
No. Auto-planning is an optional tool. Many shipments are routed by hand and never go through the planner, so an unrouted shipment is not necessarily "waiting for a plan".
