Route capacity is not about how fast you scoop. It is about the sum of scooping and driving, and in this business the drive is usually the bigger half. A dense in-town route can carry more than twice the stops of a rural one worked at exactly the same pace.
A 420-minute day at 7 minutes of service and 4 minutes of drive holds 38 stops — the drive is more than a third of it.
The example
Three route types, each with a working day and the two halves of a stop.
| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Route | Work min | Service min | Drive min | Stops |
| 2 | Dense in-town | 420 | 7 | 4 | 38 |
| 3 | Suburban | 420 | 8 | 9 | 24 |
| 4 | Rural | 390 | 10 | 18 | 13 |
The formula
Add the two halves of a stop, then divide the day by it:
How it works
Three inputs and a deliberate rounding direction:
B2is the working day in minutes after lunch, fuel, and the dump run come out. A nominal eight-hour day is rarely more than 420 productive minutes.C2+D2is a complete stop: gate to gate, plus the drive to the next yard. Include the walk from the truck — it is real time.- The division gives stops as a decimal.
ROUNDDOWN(...,0)rounds down, unlike most sizing formulas. A partly completed stop is not a stop, and promising the extra one is how routes run late every day.
Multiply stops by your per-visit price to get the daily revenue ceiling for one truck — that ceiling, not the price, is what caps a route business.
Try it: interactive demo
Enter the working day and the two halves of a stop.
Variations
Daily revenue ceiling
Multiply capacity by your per-visit price.
Techs needed for a client list
Divide the stops you owe by one tech's capacity, rounded up.
Pitfalls & errors
Drive minutes are not an average of your whole territory — they are the average between consecutive stops on that route. Sequencing a route well can halve the number without anyone scooping faster.
Yards with multiple dogs or a week's accumulation take longer. Keep two service-minute figures, one for weekly and one for twice-weekly, rather than a single blended guess.
Practice workbook
Frequently asked questions
Why round down instead of up?
How do I raise stops per day?
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