Four friends co-developed RouteSonar to cater to a desperate need in the market: a solution to a painful last-mile delivery problem in e-commerce. RouteSonar is the brainchild of Chamara Gomes, its founder and Chief Executive Officer. In early 2020, he co-developed RouteSonar together with Surath Gajanayake, Chief Operating Officer, Ruwan Wickramarathne, and, Nuzhi Meyen, Co-Chief Technology Officers when people increasingly turned to delivery services to procure essential supplies amidst the restrictions surrounding lockdowns.

You launched RouteSonar during the pandemic amid many challenges. Can you tell us about that journey?

During the first Covid-19 wave, when the lockdowns brought e-commerce to the fore, we discovered a problem that needed a solution fast.

There was a surge in online purchasing, and many businesses, including supermarket chains, built online platforms to sell goods. However, they struggled to fulfil orders on time as demand exploded and their delivery partners, or riders, felt exploited, exhausted, and overworked – as planning and making hundreds of deliveries each day was a nightmare. Consumers were anxious, frustrated, and unsatisfied because the essentials they ordered took too long to reach them.

We developed a solution that can manage multiple deliveries on a single platform to help logistics agents plan delivery routes for faster delivery. For example, if a rider has to deliver to ten different locations, our application plots the most efficient delivery sequence and shares it with the driver.

What does RouteSonar do?

Last-mile delivery is an arduous trade. Higher fuel consumption on the extra miles and hours spent on the road, the increased carbon emission from extra fuel burnt, the wear and tear of the vehicle, and lower customer satisfaction due to increased costs and delays, are the key issues we address.

For a logistics company with a fleet of delivery vehicles and a team of riders, our app can help them slash unnecessary costs and wastage to save on fuel and time, thereby contributing to environmental sustainability.

There are two parts to the product, the “Dispatcher Dashboard” which helps to manage and allocate orders based on the fleet capacity and traffic parameters and the “Driver App” which helps delivery partners to navigate, report and communicate with the dispatch.

No one had a solution to address a significant pain point for last-mile delivery in e-commerce, as it is a complex challenge. We are proud that RouteSonar provided a solution that enabled e-commerce to function smoothly in a period of uncertainty and hardships during the first Covid-19 wave.

What will be the longer-term strategy for RouteSonar to accelerate growth?

In early 2021, we took part in Green Energy Champion Accelerator implemented by Hatch Works in cooperation with Good Life X and triumphed. That recognition enabled us to secure funding to develop a sustainable business model and take RouteSonar to the mass market.

Right now, we have five trial partners, including a leading supermarket chain in the country, a blue-chip company with a large-scale logistics operation and a leading ice cream manufacturer. They are delighted and excited about RouteSonar because we maximize returns on the available fleet and resources while minimizing fuel consumption, and time wastage to improve economic, social and environmental impact.

In 2020, we developed a minimum viable product and offered it to anyone running a last-mile logistics business at no cost; it was free. We are constantly improving and upgrading the product for a better experience. We have introduced a dashboard for operations and analytics to give last-mile logistics companies better control and visibility over their fleet and operations. They can track every dispatch in real-time and monitor fuel consumption, and the data collected by the app can give them better insights into managing operations and costs.

For instance, for a fleet of mixed vehicle compositions, you are able to collect data on fleet utilization, route details, and green metrics. This kind of analytical data enables the management to make efficient decisions and ensure an optimal number of vehicles at maximum capacity are on the road following the shortest possible route.

The product is constantly evolving. We are introducing more parameters into our route optimizing algorithm. We are in the process of introducing other features into the product, such as telematic related solutions to help cold chain suppliers monitor temperatures and a platform to share fleet.

It is easy and affordable for any e-commerce or lastmile delivery company to adopt RouteSonar. RouteSonar fills the void between the dispatcher and the customer. Anyone can subscribe to RouteSonar without worrying about existing platforms or switching costs. They can integrate RouteSonar to existing platforms, and it will run on the cloud, so no additional capital expenditure is required.

We at RouteSonar want to be part of your journey in revolutionizing the logistics game.