No matter how many technological advances emerge in the newspaper industry, there is still only one way to get the print version of a newspaper to readers. That is of course, the old-fashioned way. Load up the delivery trucks and send the carriers off on their routes.

There are so many variables in that very concept that a number of things can go wrong on any given day.

RouteSmart helps newspapers balance delivery routes and sequences subscribers in ‘throw-order’ for home delivery operations.
Photo courtesy of RouteSmart

The Orange County Register in Santa Ana, Calif., has reduced the number of variables in the delivery process with RouteSmart Technologies Inc. RouteSmart’s Geographic Information System-based route optimization system automatically builds carrier routes for newspaper delivery. The system is designed to reduce the amount of miles newspaper carriers have to travel, determine how many carriers are necessary and deal with factors impacting newspaper circulation and delivery, such as seasonal fluctuations in subscribers or changes in press runs.

Prior to implementing the software, district managers at The Orange County Register’s distribution system had to manually write out carriers routes, with details like left and right turns, and manually update these routes on a daily basis.

“If a carrier quit the route and took his list with him, then [the district managers] had no backup for them to be able to go out and throw down the route — they just had to wing it,” said Julia Inskeep, business consultant for IT at The Register. “So we were looking for a tool that would give us the ability to know the sequencing of the route at the drop of a hat. RouteSmart has given us that capability because it’s all based on our routing schemes.”

Inskeep became involved in the search for a route management system at The Orange County Register (daily, 353,334; Sunday, 410,207) in February of last year.

“We are delivering so many different publications, it became almost impossible for the carriers to consolidate their lists.”

In addition to its own newspaper, The Register is the distribution center for a handful of other newspapers including The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily and Financial Times.

Implementation of the system began in September 2001 and The Register went live with the software on Nov. 19, 2001.

“We probably would have been ready to implement before that, but there were some other pieces of the actual project that were not ready. I think the RouteSmart system could’ve gone up before that,” Inskeep said.

The Register is using Discus software from Neasi-Weber for circulation management. Subscriber information is processed from that system and when batch processing starts, individual distribution center information is downloaded from Discus into the RouteSmart system.

“We load the information into the RouteSmart PC, it geo-sequences everything, sequences the routing and we can get a list off of it at 3 a.m., for example, and it’s up to date as of the latest activity,” Inskeep said.

The RouteSmart system tracks how many papers of each publication are sold and sequences publications by address. If one address has four or five publications, such as an over-the-counter sales outlet might, it will indicate that. The system will skip the addresses that have no publications on any given day and the distribution department can access that information by day, for example, a home subscriber that only gets The Register on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. These types of subscribers would show up on the newspaper’s master distribution list but they would not show up on a distribution list that was printed out on a Tuesday, for example.

“The system actually does a wide range of other processes that we have not begun to use yet,” Inskeep added.

The system’s analysis tool, already in use at The New York Times and The Seattle Times, will be the next function The Register brings on-line. It will help the newspaper determine the best way to deal with particular delivery and distribution areas.

“That is probably one of the biggest selling points of the software. It’s what we found very appealing, we just haven’t got to the point where we’re using it yet,” said Inskeep.

Single-copy capability is also on the horizon and that function will come on-line following implementation of the analysis tool.

“They have not implemented anything yet because we have some major changes going on in that division, but they will be using it,” Inskeep said.

When the single-copy tool is implemented, each store and rack will be registered under its own address in the RouteSmart system so those locations can be sequenced the same way as home delivery locations, although they will cover larger areas.

The Orange County Register has not yet added all of the publications it distributes to the RouteSmart route optimization system yet. The remaining publications will be added after they are put into the Neasi-Weber Discus software.

“Once we get them in the Discus system, they’ll automatically show up in the RouteSmart system,” Inskeep said, “There are no limitations.”

After looking at other solutions, The Register decided that RouteSmart had the best options available. The other package the newspaper seriously considered had long-term plans to do what The Register wanted, but the paper feared the company wouldn’t be able to deliver on time.

“[Route Smart] is one of the best vendors I have ever worked with, they’re really responsive,” Inskeep said. “I send these guys an e-mail from the West Coast at five o’clock and before I even go home at six I have a response from them — and they’re three hours ahead of me.”


RouteSmart Technologies
800.977.7284