Every service company pays for drive time between jobs, whether or not the schedule shows it. A technician booked for six one-hour visits from 8 to 2 isn’t working a six-hour day: they are working six hours plus every drive, plus lunch. When the plan leaves that out, the last two customers get a late crew and the office gets the phone calls.
Where the time goes
Drive time hides in three places:
- The first stop. The day starts at the shop or yard, not at the first customer. A 7:00 start and an 8:00 first visit across town may not be enough.
- Between stops. Short hops add up. Ten minutes between each of eight stops is well over an hour.
- Breaks. Lunch and short breaks don’t disappear because the schedule ignores them. They push everything after them later.
Measure in minutes, not miles
Distance on a map is a poor guide. A freeway hop of eight miles can take less time than two miles through downtown at noon. If you plan by hand, use a maps app to check the minutes for the legs that worry you, and write down the rough times between your usual areas so the office has them handy.
Give every visit a real start
A simple rule removes most late arrivals: a visit can’t start before the previous one ends plus the drive from it. The first visit can’t start before the crew’s start time plus the drive from the yard. Apply that rule every time something is booked and the schedule stays honest. Round up to a tidy slot, like the next quarter hour, so start times stay readable.
Plan the breaks
Decide on your company’s usual lunch and breaks, write them down, and plan visits around them. Some crews take a shorter lunch on a long day or skip breaks on a half day, so allow the plan to change per crew per day rather than pretending one rule fits every situation.
How Sentra Scheduler handles it
Sentra Scheduler counts drive time between jobs for you while you build the day on the schedule:
- Street drive times. Each lane’s day is driven in time order, from the day’s start point (the crew’s yard, else your office address) to the first stop and then visit to visit. Legs are measured along streets; if routing is ever unavailable, a straight-line estimate fills in and is marked as one.
- Snap to a start that works. Drop a visit on a lane and, with “Leave time for the drive” checked, it moves to the first time that leaves room for the drive from the visit before and isn’t inside a break.
- Drives you can see. Each drive shows as its own grey block on the lane, and drive times update live as you drag.
- Lunch and breaks. A company default for lunch and short breaks, adjustable for any crew on any day on crew days.
- Warnings, not blocks. If a visit doesn’t leave enough drive time, or runs into a break, the card says so. Conflicts are warnings; you can still save and fix it later.
When a visit runs long
Even a good plan meets a job that takes an extra hour. When a drop, a reschedule or a longer visit leaves the next visits overlapping or short of drive time, Sentra Scheduler offers “Push the rest of the day.” It moves the following visits on that lane later, in order, each one after the previous end plus the drive, never starting in a break. Visits already done never move, and a single Undo puts everything back. If those customers were promised an arrival window, the schedule flags any visit that now starts outside it so the office can call first.
On the route
The same drives feed dispatch, which draws each day’s route along real streets with arrive times, miles and drive minutes. In the crew app, Today lists the stops in order with an arrive time for each and Navigate to the next one.
Check a day before it starts
A quick look at tomorrow’s lanes the afternoon before catches most problems while they’re still cheap to fix:
- Booked versus available. Compare each lane’s work and driving against the hours the crew has. A lane with more driving than usual is a hint that it crosses town.
- The last stop. Look at when the final visit ends. If it’s past the crew’s usual finish, move something now, not at 3 PM.
- Visits without an address pin. A visit with no location can’t be measured, so its drive is unknown. Fix the address before the crew needs it.
Sentra Scheduler shows each lane’s work hours, driving hours and capacity under its name, and lists every conflict for the day, so this check takes a couple of minutes.
A short checklist
- Start the day’s clock at the yard, not the first customer.
- Never book a visit before the previous end plus the drive.
- Put lunch and breaks in the plan, per crew if needed.
- When a job runs long, move the rest of the day at once rather than one visit at a time.
Treat drive time between jobs as part of the work and the schedule starts telling the truth. Crews finish on time more often, and customers stop calling to ask where they are. For the bigger picture of building routes, see our guide to window cleaning route planning; it applies to any trade.