Editor’s note: Today’s article comes from Mike Koleno, CTO at Better Trucks. Mike shares how Better Trucks is using Google Cloud and the Google Maps Platform Route Optimization API to create a delivery system that is faster, more transparent, and more equitable by design.
We founded Better Trucks in 2019 to build a faster, tech-first, and radically transparent last-mile network. From the start, our engineering strategy has been tightly aligned with Google Cloud and Google Maps Platform. Today, Google Cloud powers our APIs, routing systems, and ML models, while Google Maps Platform Route Optimization sits at the center of how we plan, price, and execute delivery routes across our growing multi-market network.
Before rolling out full route optimization, Better Trucks used Google Maps Platform’s Routes API for single-vehicle delivery routing and ETA calculations. We’ve long relied on core Google Maps Platform products like Geocoding, Distance Matrix and the Maps SDKs to power address resolution, mapping, and visibility across our tools. For drivers, we’ve also leaned on Navigation SDK to provide traffic-aware, turn-by-turn guidance on the road. More recently, we added the Address Validation API to improve address quality before packages ever hit the network. Together, these building blocks set the stage for the more advanced, multi-vehicle route optimization we use today.
As Better Trucks scaled, our delivery network quickly outgrew single-vehicle routing. The Routes API worked well early on, but once we had hundreds of vehicles on the road at the same time, we needed a way to plan and optimize routes across an entire fleet, not one driver at a time. During this transition, we worked closely with Woolpert Digital Innovations, a premier Google Partner, leaning on their expertise to support our implementation as they grew to fleet-wide optimization. Route Optimization let us do exactly that as we optimized multiple vehicles together while factoring in real-world constraints like delivery density, vehicle capacity and more. It also helped reduce manual route building and operational guesswork as we expanded. The shift ultimately moved us from simply routing individual drivers to coordinating a full last-mile network.
To improve upon our last-mile experience, Better Trucks built a software product called Checkpoint, an address validation and correction service we’ve been using and refining internally for years before officially launching it in 2025. Today, Checkpoint is used by Uber Freight as well as other customers and partners across our network. It was built to tackle one of the hardest problems in last mile delivery, bad addresses. Checkpoint combines AI, human review, real time customer interaction, and the Address Validation API to catch and fix issues after checkout, but before a package ever goes out for delivery. The result is higher first attempt delivery success, lower costs, and a better experience for both shippers and end customers.
How Better Trucks uses Route Optimization
At Better Trucks, Route Optimization has become one of the most important tools in our operations. It powers route planning, driver route pricing, and the performance insights that keep a complex last-mile network running efficiently at scale.
Smarter route design
We rely on the Route Optimization API to design our daily routes across zones, subzones, and ZIP codes. The API evaluates package volume, cubic capacity, distance, and modeled delivery duration so every route we generate is aligned with real-world delivery conditions. This lets us fine-tune groupings far more accurately than traditional routing heuristics.
The Route Optimization API helps us design our daily routes across zones, subzones, and ZIP codes
Driver route pricing
Route Optimization’s duration estimates directly inform how we price routes for drivers. By grounding route pay in modeled delivery time, we ensure compensation reflects actual workload and time commitment. It reduces hidden work, avoids underpaying operationally complex routes, and ensures that similar time commitments are compensated consistently, even when routes differ in geography, density, or stop characteristics. This creates a fair, predictable, and consistent pricing model across markets and density levels.
Supporting driver choice & flexibility
Accurate duration forecasts also give drivers visibility into expected route length before receiving their route assignments. This transparency helps drivers match routes to their schedules, increases satisfaction, and smooths out the operational flow of each delivery day.
Accurate duration forecasts also give drivers visibility into expected route length before receiving their route assignments
Performance insights
The duration and routing data we accumulate over time allow us to monitor and improve network performance. We use this information to benchmark delivery speed, measure efficiency, and pinpoint the operational improvements that produce the biggest impact.
Recently we announced an expanded commercial partnership with Uber Freight, allowing it to leverage our technology, operational capability, and scaled delivery network to significantly expand its last-mile capabilities. With this partnership, Uber Freight customers can now extend delivery from their store or fulfillment locations directly to consumers’ doorsteps with enhanced efficiency, real-time visibility, and reliability—covering approximately 68% of the U.S. population.
By building our last-mile network on Google Cloud and placing Google Maps Platform Route Optimization at the core of our operations, Better Trucks has created a delivery system that is faster, more transparent, and more equitable by design. Route Optimization powers how we design routes, price driver work, and understand network performance using real-world data instead of assumptions. The result is smarter routing, predictable and fair compensation, and continuous operational improvement across every market we serve, as well as expanding partnerships like our recent Uber Freight announcement. As we scale, our integration of Google Cloud and Google Maps Platform remains a critical enabler of reliable, data-driven last-mile execution.
