Route time is the part of a removal that covers the driving: the journey between the pickup address and the delivery address, plus any return to the operator’s base. Together with loading time, it makes up the two components of a time-based quote.
Route time is calculated from the actual distance and expected driving conditions between the two addresses, rather than a flat mileage band. A cross-city move and a move to the next street are genuinely different jobs, and route time prices them differently.
What affects route time:
- Distance. The main factor. A local move has very little route time. A long-distance move has a great deal.
- Expected traffic. Urban routes and peak periods take longer to cover the same miles.
- Return leg. Some quotes include the driver’s journey back to base, since that time is part of the job too.
Splitting route time out from loading time is what stops a quote from being a guess. A customer with a lot of belongings moving a short distance has high loading time and low route time. A customer with very little to move but going from one end of the country to the other has the opposite. A flat fee would overcharge one of them and undercharge the other. A house removals quote built from route time and loading time reflects what the job actually involves.