3. Zones
One factor that has an impact on freight costs is the geographical location of both sender and receiver. The tab Zones allows the user to define areas that impose price adjustments to the price basis. The customized areas can also serve to define limits for certain services.
3.1 Type
There are five types of Zones that can be defined and a PriceSheet can contain mixed zone types in its XML. To add a Zone press New:
The user is then required to name the Zone and define its Type:
After the selection is complete press the green checkmark to confirm the creation of Z1.
3.1.1 Country List
Country list allows the user to enter a list of countries as a Zone. After the type is chosen, three buttons are identified on the right side. Their functions are Edit, Delete and Expand.
Press Expand, then New to start adding countries. ISOA2/ISOA3 corresponding to two/three letter country codes respectively are supported.
A Country list Zone can contain multiple countries. After each selection press the arrow to define a SubZone. A Subzone further divides a Zone with the possibility of imposing restrictions via a PostCode List/Interval. For each PostCode List/Interval entry a Value format is automatically filled when typed with N for numerical and A for alphanumerical characters. In the example below Zone Z1 contains Sweden and Denmark. For Sweden both a PostCode List a PostCode Interval are defined. For Denmark a single PostCode List entry with value * is provided. This means that for Denmark all PostCodes are included in Z1. This could also be achieved with a PostCode Interval of 0000-9999
To obtain the example above Import the following XML via the Options drop-down menu. Similarly, by selecting Export the Zone list can be saved as an XML file. When importing the list in Zones is overwritten.
3.1.2 Postcode List
To create a Postcode List Zone the process is similar to Country list type, however the user is not forced to select a country. This type of Zone could be used to model domestic shipments where the country selection is implicit.
After the Zone is created, Expand and press New to start building the Postcode List.
3.1.3 Postcode Interval
The creation of a Postcode Interval Zone is identical to Postcode List type. The difference is that instead of individual Postcode values, the Zone is composed of Postcode ranges, defined as Postcode Intervals.
Once added, click Expand followed by New to start adding Postcode Intervals to the Zone.
3.1.4 Distance List
After pressing New and choosing Distance Type and a suitable name, distance values for the Zone can be entered.
With Distance List the exact value that is entered must be matched to the total distance a transport travels for a price to be given. For this reason the type Distance Interval is rarely used, unless all possible route distances are fixed.
3.1.5 Distance Interval
Creating the Zone is identical to Distance List, however instead of a list, a Distance Interval is provided. In the example that follows one Distance Interval per Zone is used. It can be observed that a total of 64 Zones have to be constructed in order to fully map the matrix in Section 2.6 . Continuing with our example, we map the given matrix as a Distance Interval. The values are easy to read from the table, and do not overlap therefore no further alternations are needed. When entering intervals make sure the intervals do not overlap and also no rule change regarding the selection of the interval limits should occur in the process.
Create a Zone called Z1 and choose Distance interval as the Type. Confirm by pressing the checkmark. Now the interval limits for Zone Z1 need to be filled. On the right side, there are three buttons: Edit, Delete and Expand.
Press Expand, then New and input the first interval 1 – 21 km and confirm. Zone Z1 is now defined.
Continue until all 64 Zones are created and define the corresponding interval for each. The values for each Zone is read from the columns defining the distance intervals. The beginning and end of each interval is always entered, such that Z1 has 1-20km, Z2: 21-40km … Z64: 1951-2000km.
This work can be done manually through the GUI or if a list of zones already exists in a correct XML format it can be imported via the Options button:
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