Route99 is an integrated computer software consisting of:

At the very heart of Route99 is a Scheduling engine. You may think of this Scheduling engine as a black box in the same way that you probably look at a car engine as a black box

The Route99 Scheduling engine

Is a sophisticated mathematical program. The mechanics of this engine is a unique blend of several decades of chartering experience coupled with state of art methods in mathematical operations research.

The Route99 engine is the result of many years testing and trials in real shipping and chartering use.

All the time since the late 60s several companies, especially the major oil companies, have tried to develop smart scheduling systems that could schedule ships to match tank and inventory requirements. Most of these projects ended with a nice theoretical paper given at an operations research conference, but few if any reach the acid test of actually being implemented and taken in use by day to day chartering and operations people.

The reasons for such failure is several:

• Chartering and scheduling of ships is a very complex task

• There are no standard methods for “digitising” the relevant information about ships positions, shippers’ requirements, laydays etc

• Information about ships, contracts and spot cargoes are changing all the time and few companies have the “discipline” to collect all information in a digital form.

• There are no clear and obvious criteria to optimise against

• Schedule end effects often distort the purpose

• Chartering managers are often recruited from basic functions and are “hands-on-managers” with little interest for “fancy” software models.

• There are few ways to really test if a chartering manager is doing a good job

 In other words for a system to be useful, it must meet all the “hidden” requirements of the practical and seasoned chartering executives. Route99 has made all the efforts in order to meet such requirements – but we expect that there is still room for improvements !

Is it important for the user to understand the black engine ? Not really. It is not more important to understand the Route99 engine than it is to understand the functioning of a car engine. Most people will accept the car engine as a black engine as long as it can perform by accelerating at the expect rate and being able to carry goods and passengers from A to B in a fast and comfortable manner.

Same with the Route99. As long as the user can see that Route99 generates feasible schedules that provide better economical results for the operator, the user should feel comfortable about this engine.