Paragon Software Systems Inc. announced that Carbon Minimizer functionality adds environmental factors to its routing and scheduling optimization software.

Paragon’s Carbon Minimizer functionality helps users to further reduce carbon emissions and fuel consumption of their planned schedules, which reduces both their carbon footprint and transportation operating costs.

Carbon Minimizer optimizes route efficiency in terms of fuel used and associated carbon emissions.

“The Paragon algorithm has been extended to include vehicle weight and speed variations and the impact that these factors have on fuel consumption and carbon emissions,” says Richard Street, Paragon’s software development director. “As a result users can review and monitor the carbon and fuel related KPIs of their operations, and can apply an additional optimization step to further reduce emissions and fuel used.”

The software estimates and reports the total CO₂ and fuel content of all the routes and schedules, including distances, speeds, weight and vehicle fuel efficiency. Carbon Minimizer is then used as a final optimization step to adjust the schedules – changing stop sequences and swapping stops between routes – to further reduce total CO₂ emissions and fuel usage.

The software takes into account slower city-based travel that utilizes more fuel and emits more carbon emissions than highway travel that is much faster. Similarly, heavily loaded vehicles use more fuel/CO₂ per mile than empty ones. The Carbon Minimizer incorporates these factors to generate carbon-friendly schedules.