AECOM to leverage TomTom’s location tech

When a $15 billion infrastructure firm announces a technology partnership to improve how its field crews navigate and plan routes, most small contractors scroll past the headline. That is a mistake. Large companies do not invest in technology to be first — they invest when the math is undeniable. When AECOM partnered with TomTom to integrate advanced location intelligence into project planning, it sent a clear signal to every contractor running a service fleet: routing efficiency is now a competitive weapon, and the gap between those who use it and those who ignore it is measurable in tens of thousands of dollars per year.

This article is not about enterprise software or seven-figure technology budgets. It is for the HVAC company running four trucks, the plumbing outfit with three crews, the electrical contractor who dispatches six technicians every morning from a whiteboard and a group text. The tools that make this kind of optimization possible are not expensive, and the savings they generate are not theoretical. The math is straightforward — and it is not in your favor if you are still dispatching with Google Maps and a phone call.

Why a $15 Billion Deal Should Change How You Plan Your Day

What did AECOM actually do, and why does it matter to small contractors?

AECOM is a publicly traded infrastructure and construction services firm with annual revenues exceeding $15 billion. When a company of that scale formalizes a technology partnership specifically to improve location data, route planning, and geofencing for field operations, it is because internal analysis showed concrete returns. AECOM’s leadership has cited a reduction in project overruns of 6 to 10 percent attributable to optimized routing and real-time traffic data. That is not a rounding error — it is a fundamental shift in how field-based businesses control costs.

The principle scales down directly. Whether you are coordinating 10,000 workers across a continent or dispatching four HVAC technicians across a metro area, the underlying problem is identical: people and vehicles moving between locations waste time and fuel when the sequencing is not optimized. AECOM needed a custom enterprise partnership to access this capability. You can access an equivalent set of tools for under $100 per month through platforms already built for contractors your size.

Is routing optimization really relevant for a sub-$10 million contractor?

The key insight here is not that you should imitate AECOM’s technology stack. It is that the largest, most analytically rigorous companies in construction have now validated the ROI of location intelligence in field operations. If it makes financial sense at $15 billion in revenue, it absolutely makes financial sense at $1 million, $3 million, or $8 million — especially because the percentage impact on a small operation is often larger, not smaller. You have less slack in your margins to absorb inefficiency, and every dollar recovered from waste goes directly to the bottom line.

The True Cost of Inefficient Routing for Small Contractors

How much does poor routing actually cost per truck per year?

Most contractors who are losing money to poor routing do not know it, because the losses are distributed across dozens of small inefficiencies rather than appearing as a single line item. Start with fuel. A service truck running six stops per day on suboptimal routes typically burns an additional four to six gallons per week compared to a properly sequenced route covering the same appointments. At current fuel prices, that translates to roughly $15 to $22 per week per truck. Over a 50-week working year, one truck costs you $750 to $1,100 in excess fuel. A three-truck fleet is losing $2,250 to $3,300 annually in pure fuel waste — money that disappears without a single customer complaint or invoice dispute to flag it.

Why is wasted labor a bigger problem than wasted fuel for service contractors?

Fuel is not the biggest number. Labor is. When a technician spends an additional 30 minutes per day backtracking, sitting in avoidable traffic, or waiting at jobs that were sequenced incorrectly, that time compounds quickly. Thirty minutes daily becomes 2.5 hours weekly. Over a full working year, that is 130 hours per technician. At a loaded labor rate of $35 per hour — which is conservative for most skilled trades — that represents $4,550 in lost productivity per tech per year. A three-technician operation is therefore losing approximately $13,650 annually in labor inefficiency alone, before accounting for a single dollar of fuel.

Combined, a modest three-truck operation facing average routing inefficiency is losing somewhere between $15,000 and $22,000 per year in fuel and labor costs that never surface on a job report. For a business operating on 15 to 25 percent net margins, that figure represents a significant share of annual profit.

The Google Maps Trap (And Why It Costs More Than You Think)

Why doesn’t Google Maps work for multi-stop service routing?

Google Maps is an excellent tool for a consumer driving to a single destination. For a contractor managing multi-stop service routes, it is fundamentally inadequate — and that distinction matters enormously. The core limitation is that Google Maps does not solve the Traveling Salesman Problem. When your dispatcher enters five addresses for a technician’s day, Google Maps will get him from point A to point B efficiently. It will not calculate the optimal sequence in which to visit all five locations to minimize total drive time and distance. That calculation is left entirely to the dispatcher’s judgment, which may or may not account for traffic patterns at different times of day, service windows at each location, or the geographic clustering of stops.

How much time does a technician lose daily by using Google Maps instead of a routing tool?

Contractors relying on Google Maps for multi-stop dispatch lose an estimated 45 to 60 minutes per technician per day compared to those using purpose-built route optimization. That loss comes from three sources: manual planning time before the route begins, suboptimal stop sequencing during the route, and reactive detours when a job runs long and nothing reschedules automatically. Over a year, at even the lower estimate of 45 minutes per day, that is nearly 190 hours per technician — more than four full working weeks of productivity that simply evaporates.

Beyond time and fuel, Google Maps carries an invisible cost in customer satisfaction. When stops are not sequenced against service windows, technicians arrive late. When a job runs long and there is no dynamic rescheduling, the next customer waits without warning. These are the conditions that generate negative reviews, lost repeat customers, and damaged referral networks — consequences that ripple through revenue for months or years after a single bad experience.

What Smart Routing Actually Does for a Service Business

What is multi-stop route optimization and how does it work?

Purpose-built routing software for contractors does several things that general mapping applications cannot. Multi-stop optimization is the foundational feature. The software ingests a day’s worth of appointments — addresses, service windows, job durations, technician start locations — and calculates the most efficient sequence for each crew member. Even for a modest ten-stop day, the number of possible sequences runs into the millions. Algorithms designed for this problem consistently reduce total drive distance by 15 to 25 percent compared to manually sequenced routes.

How does dynamic rescheduling protect customer relationships?

Dynamic rescheduling is the feature that most directly impacts customer experience. When a job runs over its estimated duration, smart routing software automatically recalculates the remaining route, identifies the impact on subsequent appointments, and can trigger automated notifications to affected customers. This converts what would have been a silent late arrival into a managed communication — which dramatically changes how customers perceive the experience. For HVAC contractors, where customer communication directly affects system sale close rates, this feature alone can justify the software cost.

What is geofencing and how do contractors use it to capture unbilled time?

Geofencing adds a layer of accountability and automation. When a technician enters or exits a defined geographic boundary — a job site, a customer’s neighborhood, a supply house — the software can automatically log arrival and departure times, notify the customer, update job status in the CRM, or flag if a technician is somewhere unexpected. For contractors tracking labor time against job estimates, this automated time capture alone can recover meaningful amounts of unbilled or under-billed hours. Many field service platforms with geofencing built in — including the options we cover in our mobile app comparison for field technicians — make this feature available at mid-tier pricing without add-on costs.

How does fleet visibility help with same-day emergency calls?

Fleet visibility gives dispatchers a real-time view of where every vehicle is, how each technician’s day is progressing, and where opportunities exist to insert urgent service calls without disrupting the rest of the schedule. For HVAC and plumbing contractors who run emergency service work alongside scheduled maintenance calls, this visibility is the difference between capturing same-day revenue and losing it to a competitor with better situational awareness.

The Feature Checklist: What to Look for in Routing Software

What routing software features are non-negotiable for a small service contractor?

Not every contractor needs the same feature set, but there is a baseline capability list that separates routing software worth paying for from tools that simply recreate what Google Maps already does for free. Run any platform through these criteria before committing to a subscription.

Multi-stop sequence optimization should be non-negotiable. If the software cannot calculate optimal stop order based on location, time windows, and job duration, it is not routing software — it is a mapping application with a subscription fee. Confirm that optimization happens automatically, not just when you manually request it.

Service window scheduling ensures that the routing engine respects customer-facing appointment commitments. A route that minimizes drive time but arrives at a commercial account during hours the building is closed has created a larger problem than it solved. Look for software that treats service windows as hard constraints, not suggestions.

CRM and dispatch integration is what separates a routing tool from a routing-and-operations tool. When your routing software talks to your job management platform, information flows without manual re-entry: job status updates, arrival times, materials used, invoice triggers. The hidden costs of field service software are often driven by the need to run multiple disconnected tools rather than one integrated platform. Platforms that bundle routing with dispatch, invoicing, and customer communication consistently deliver higher efficiency gains than standalone routing tools.

Mobile technician access means your crews can view their optimized routes, update job statuses, capture signatures, and communicate with dispatch from a phone. If the software only runs in a web browser on a desktop, it is not field-ready. See our breakdown of what technicians actually need from a field service mobile app to understand which platform design leads to real-world adoption versus “app mutiny.”

Real-time traffic integration ensures the optimization accounts for actual conditions throughout the day, not just the conditions that existed when the route was generated at 7 AM. A route optimized in the morning using historical traffic patterns may be significantly suboptimal by mid-afternoon, particularly in markets with variable congestion.

How to Implement Route Optimization Without Disrupting Your Business

What is the right order of steps for a contractor adopting routing software?

The most common reason contractors delay adopting better routing tools is not cost — it is the perceived disruption of changing how the business operates. That concern is legitimate but manageable when implementation follows a structured sequence rather than a full cutover.

Step 1: Audit your current baseline. Before you can measure improvement, you need to understand what you are working with. Track one full week of route data: total miles driven per truck, fuel costs, average drive time between stops, and any late arrivals. Most contractors who do this exercise for the first time are surprised by how wide the variance is between their best and worst routing days. That variance is your opportunity.

Step 2: Check what you already own. Look first at routing features already built into your existing field service management software. Many contractors are paying for routing capability they have never activated. If your current platform lacks meaningful routing optimization, that gap should factor into your next software evaluation — and it is worth reading a clear cost comparison before deciding whether to add a tool or switch platforms. The real-cost pricing breakdown for Jobber and Housecall Pro is a good starting point for understanding what you are actually buying at each tier.

Step 3: Run a controlled two-week pilot. Select one truck or one technician and run optimized routing for two weeks while the rest of the operation continues normally. Measure the results against your baseline data. In most cases, the savings are visible within the first week and the learning curve is short enough that the pilot technician becomes an internal advocate for broader adoption.

Step 4: Train your dispatcher alongside your technicians. Route optimization software changes the dispatcher’s role more than it changes the technician’s. The dispatcher moves from manually building routes to managing the exceptions that the software surfaces. This requires training not just on the software but on the new decision-making process — when to override the algorithm, how to handle urgent add-ons, and how to communicate schedule changes to customers. The AI-powered analytics features in modern field service platforms can help dispatchers answer questions like “which technician is closest to an emergency call right now” in seconds rather than minutes.

ROI Breakdown: Running the Numbers for Your Fleet Size

What is the expected return on routing software for a 1-truck, 3-truck, and 5-truck operation?

The following estimates are grounded in industry benchmarks for service contractors and are conservative by design. Your actual results will vary based on current routing efficiency, fuel costs in your market, labor rates, and service area density. Use these figures as a floor, not a ceiling.

For a single-truck operation running six to eight stops per day, combined fuel and labor savings from optimized routing typically fall between $5,000 and $8,000 per year. At a software cost of $50 to $100 per month, the payback period is two to three months. Net annual benefit after software cost: $4,400 to $6,800.

For a three-truck operation, annual savings range from $15,000 to $24,000. With software costs scaling modestly at most platforms — which charge per user or per technician rather than per truck — the payback period remains in the four to six month range. Net annual benefit: $13,000 to $22,800. This is also the fleet size at which the true per-tech cost differences between platforms begin to matter most, because you are splitting a $300–$450 monthly subscription across three or more users.

For a five-truck operation, savings of $25,000 to $40,000 annually are achievable, and the software cost represents less than 5 percent of that figure. At this fleet size, the argument for optimization is not just strong — it is financially difficult to justify not acting.

Beyond fuel savings, what other financial benefits does route optimization create?

Beyond direct savings, two secondary revenue effects deserve attention. First, optimized schedules allow technicians to complete one to two additional service calls per week without extending working hours. For an HVAC tech generating $300 to $600 in revenue per service call, one extra call per week represents $15,000 to $30,000 in incremental annual revenue. Second, fewer late arrivals and better communication translate to measurably higher customer retention. For a contractor whose average customer lifetime value is $2,000 to $5,000, retaining even two or three additional customers per year — customers who would have left over a single bad service experience — pays for the software many times over.

The combined picture — direct cost savings, incremental service capacity, and improved retention — means that route optimization is not a technology expense. It is one of the highest-return operational investments available to a small service contractor.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much money can a small contractor realistically save with route optimization software?

A contractor running three to five trucks can realistically save $18,000 to $30,000 per year in combined fuel and labor costs. A single-truck operation should expect $5,000 to $8,000 annually. The payback period on most field service software with built-in routing is four to six months, making it one of the fastest-returning operational investments available to a small service business.

Is Google Maps good enough for managing a multi-stop service schedule?

Google Maps is reliable for single-destination navigation but does not optimize multi-stop sequences, account for service time windows, or integrate with your dispatch and invoicing systems. The planning gap costs the average technician 45 to 60 minutes per day — losses that add up to more than 150 hours per technician annually, or the equivalent of four full working weeks gone with nothing to show for them.

What features should a contractor prioritize when evaluating routing software?

The most important features are multi-stop sequence optimization, service window scheduling, real-time traffic adjustment, CRM integration, and mobile access for technicians. Platforms that bundle routing with dispatch, invoicing, and customer communication tend to deliver higher overall efficiency gains than standalone routing tools because information flows without manual re-entry between systems.

How does better routing affect customer satisfaction and retention?

Tighter, optimized schedules reduce late arrivals and missed appointment windows, which are among the leading triggers for negative reviews in the service trades. When routes include dynamic rescheduling, customers receive proactive communication when a job runs long rather than experiencing an unexplained late arrival. That shift — from a silent problem to a managed update — measurably improves customer satisfaction and repeat business rates.

Does route optimization software make sense for a one- or two-person operation?

Yes. Even a solo operator running six to eight stops per day will recover the software cost in fuel and scheduling efficiency within the first few months. For very small operations, the scheduling, invoicing, and customer communication features built into most field service platforms often deliver more immediate value than the routing optimization itself. The per-truck math is actually more favorable at smaller fleet sizes because the software cost is spread over fewer users, making the percentage return on investment even higher.

Author: Mike Warner

About the Founder Kore Komfort Solutions is an Army veteran-owned digital platform led by a 30-year veteran of the construction and remodeling trades. After three decades of swinging hammers and managing crews across the United States, I’ve shifted my focus from the job site to the back office. Our New Mission: To help residential contractors move from "chaos" to "profit." We provide honest, field-tested software reviews, operational playbooks, and insights into the AI revolution—empowering the next generation of trade business owners to build companies that last.