Free Vehicle Routing Software (VRP Solver)

What is the vehicle routing problem?

The vehicle routing problem (VRP) asks how to serve a set of stops with a fleet of vehicles at the lowest total cost — the classic "which truck visits which stops, and in what order" question behind delivery, field service, and logistics planning. This free tool solves the VRP with time windows (VRP-TW) and vehicle capacity limits: each stop can have an earliest and latest arrival time, each vehicle carries one or more maximum loads (weight, volume, pallet count — whichever apply), and routes respect a driving-time limit that can be set per vehicle.

Under the hood it uses Google OR-Tools with a guided local search metaheuristic and pulls real drive times from OSRM, so routes reflect actual road networks rather than straight-line distances. Upload an Excel workbook with your stops, vehicles, and parameters, click run, and you get optimized routes on a map plus a downloadable CSV — no signup, no install, completely free.

1 How it works

This is why you start from the sample rather than your own file: the optimizer reads its own workbook layout, not any spreadsheet. It needs these tab names, exactly.

In locations, each row needs either lat + lon, or an address we can geocode for you, plus demand1, service_time, window_open, window_close, block_start and block_end. Column order doesn't matter; the header names do. Addresses outside the US? Set AddressCountry to OTHER on the parameters tab (and include the country in each address) — the default, US, uses the US Census geocoder, which only knows US addresses.

⇣ Download the sample workbook — 112 Cleveland-area stops, 10 vans. Run it as-is first; it takes about a minute and costs you nothing. Prefer Google Sheets? Use the ready-made copy in step 2 below.
No spreadsheet at all? Scroll to the third option and just paste a list of addresses.

2 Upload your workbook

Upload the sample workbook — unchanged the first time, then with your own data in it. What doesn't work is your own spreadsheet: if the tabs aren't named locations, vehicles and parameters, the file is rejected.

🔒 Privacy: the coordinates you submit are sent to OSRM's public routing server to compute travel times. If you enter addresses instead of lat/lon, they're first looked up via the US Census geocoder, falling back to OpenStreetMap's Nominatim and then komoot's Photon — nothing beyond what's needed to build the route. We cache some data on the server to speed up responses: travel times (by coordinate hash) and addresses already geocoded, so the same address isn't looked up twice. Nothing is sold or shared.

3 Results

Common questions

Is there a free vehicle routing Excel template? Yes — the sample workbook above is a complete, working template: a 112-stop dataset with locations, vehicles, time windows, and parameters, ready to overwrite with your own stops. Prefer Google Sheets? Use the copyable template linked in the upload section.

Can I just upload my own spreadsheet? No — and this is the most common reason a run fails. The optimizer reads tabs named exactly locations, vehicles and parameters, because it needs vehicle capacities and solver parameters, not only a list of stops. Paste your stops into the sample workbook instead. If all you have is a list of addresses, skip the workbook entirely and use the paste-addresses box.

Can I plan a route with more than 10 stops? Yes. Google Maps caps you at 10 waypoints; this tool routinely handles a hundred-plus stops across multiple vehicles — see how it compares to other free multi-stop route planners.

How does it compare to paid routing software? It solves the same problem class as the commercial tools, minus fleets-of-thousands scale and driver apps. If you are evaluating options, I wrote up an honest Route4Me alternative comparison.

Excel Solver won't handle my routing problem — what then? Excel's built-in Solver (and add-ons like SolverStudio) cap out fast on real routing problems with time windows and vehicle capacity. See where Excel Solver hits its limit and what to use instead.

Can I keep the whole workflow in a spreadsheet? Yes — the input is a workbook and the routes download as a CSV that opens straight in Excel or Google Sheets. See the spreadsheet-in, spreadsheet-out workflow for how that works end to end.

Is this open source? The engine underneath, Google OR-Tools, is; this hosted app isn't. If you'd rather build your own, open-source vehicle routing software has a working OR-Tools example in Python and the other libraries worth a look.

More ways to use this

Same solver, written up for the setting you're actually routing for:

• Last-mile delivery routing — parcel and package delivery, per-van capacity and time windows.
• Field service routing — technician appointment windows, job duration, and per-tech capacity.
• Delivery route planner — for small businesses running their own delivery routes.
• Fleet route optimization — multi-vehicle trucking and distribution fleets.
• Sales rep route planner — outside sales reps and merchandisers visiting client sites.
• Courier routing software — same-day and multi-stop courier services.
• Waste & recycling collection routing — truck capacity and collection time windows.
• Food banks & food rescue — home-delivery and donor-pickup routing for volunteer drivers.