Weight and volume properties
In the request to RouteQ, you can set the load capacity of vehicles and the weight of orders.
Two measurement systems are supported:
- Actual weight in kilograms and volume weight.
- Unit weight (pallets, boxes, or kegs).
Actual weight
RouteQ lets you define the order weight or vehicle load capacity in kilograms.
If the order weight isn't specified, it's considered 0.
Unit weight
In addition to weight and volume units specified in the metric system, RouteQ supports setting the order size and vehicle capacity in abstract weight units.
An abstract weight unit is usually a whole and indivisible object (such as a pallet, box, or keg). However, sometimes, instead of cargo units (such as pallets), you need to use some conventional units of measurement: most often when there are shipment specifics for different categories of product items.
For example, pallet stacking is allowed for one product and not allowed for another product. This means the vehicle capacity will be different for products measured in pallets. In this case, at the stage of preparing input data, you need to calculate certain adjusted capacity values as units (to enable this, RouteQ supports fractional unit values).
For example, there is a vehicle with a capacity of 12 pallets, but 15 pallets of product 1 can be loaded (due to stacking). All other products require exactly 12 pallets. In this case, 1 pallet of product 1 must be converted to 0.8 regular pallets when the data is sent to RouteQ.
Please note that the unit weight or volume is considered regardless of the specified order weight and volume or vehicle capacity. For example, the load capacity of a vehicle may be limited to 20 tons or 10 pallets, and the vehicle is treated as fully loaded when one of the capacities is reached.