Bailiff planning solution cuts mileage by 50 per cent

Collect Services, one of Britain's leading firms of enforcement agents (generally known as bailiffs), has rolled out the latest version of Collections, the specialised planning and scheduling system developed by MapMechanics under the company's guidance, and managing director David Rayner's verdict is unequivocal: "The control that it gives us is fantastic."

He explains: "Our business is about operating efficiently, minimising costs and maximising the number of visits our agents can do in a day. Collections has become an indispensable part of this process. Basically, the system has helped to keep us in business in the recent recessionary times."

Collections helps Collect Services' management team plan its agents' journeys from day to day. It plans routes with the minimum distance between calls, grouping visits as tightly as possible consistent with achieving a high number of visits. "The original version saved us about 38 per cent of mileage," David Rayner says, "but the latest version is saving about 50 per cent."

While Collections has proved invaluable in planning optimal walking routes (even saving agents from crossing main roads too often), lately it has also proved invaluable in optimising the company's increasing number of long-distance journeys. Around 20 per cent of the company's visits now involve locations more than 50 miles away from its base west of London.

"A lot of our work is made up of parking fine enforcement in London and the South East," David Rayner explains, "but often the offenders live in other parts of the country. We take pride in doing all our own enforcement visits, rather than contracting out any of the work, so our agents often need to travel throughout the country to reach them."

Typically, the company will use Collections to construct a journey lasting two or three days. "For example, the agent might snake up the country, taking in several visits on the way, then spend a couple of days in Newcastle, doing visits in that area, before returning south."

David Rayner says that even on these long-distance operations, Collections enables an agent to complete between twenty and thirty calls in a day – as good as the national industry average for local operations. On purely local journeys, he says Collect Services continues to achieve 50 or more calls in a day – far above industry norms.