TransitQuote Pro 4.4 will be our last major release of the year. This version includes some highly anticipated new features as well as upgrades to core plugin components.

This post is an overview of the most important changes and new features in our courier and transportation quote calculator for WordPress websites.

Surcharge Zones

One of the most requested features for our automatic transportation price calculator is the ability to charge customers a set price for delivery routes that cross traffic congestion zones or other areas which have a toll in place.

With version 4.4 we have introduced two new admin tabs for setting up zones, creating surcharges and assigning surcharges to zones.

Your business website can now automatically add a surcharge to the quoted price for any bookings with an address inside a Surcharge Zone.

Surcharge Zones are geographical areas that you can create by drawing the outline on a Google Map on the Surcharge Zones tab in your WordPress website’s admin area.

The ability to draw the area will provide flexibility so that surcharge zones can be created anywhere in the world with no restrictions.

There are no limits on the number of surcharge zones that can be created.

Zones can be layered on top of one another. If a delivery address is within two zones with different surcharges, the charge for both zones will be added together and added to the total price for the job.

The outline of zones can be viewed in the WordPress admin area but are not visible to your customers.

Journey Stages With Difference Pricing Schemes

When TransitQuote Pro generates a price for your customer’s delivery job it uses the Google Maps Directions API to work out the fastest or shortest route.

The route information is now processed by a new component which can optionally break the route down into different stages. Journey stages are:

• Dispatch stage (From your depo or business location to the first collection address)
• Delivery stage (From the first collection address to the last drop off address)
• Return to collection stage (From the final collection address back to the pick up location)
• Return to base stage (From the final destination address back to the depo)

Your business can include the distance and time for all or any of the above journey stages in the price calculations.

You now have the option of using different rates (price per mile/km, set price and / or price per hour) to calculate a price for each journey stage.

Using journey stages is entirely optional and by default only the distance from pick up to drop off is used to calculate the price.

When a quote is generated for a journey that includes stages before or after the delivery stage, the map will only display the route from the customer’s pick up address to the final drop off.

Detailed Quote Breakdowns

The new pricing options available for your courier or transportation business does meant that the price calculation is more complicated.

To clarify how each delivery quote is calculated we have created a new itemized quote breakdown table.

The quote breakdown is always displayed in the dashboard and can optionally be shown to your customer during the booking process.

Upgrading from Earlier Versions of TransitQuote Pro

If you already use TransitQuote Pro on your transportation or courier website, please read our upgrade guide before installing the new version.

This version changes the way that the optional return to collection stage of the journey is calculated, so if you currently use this feature you will only get the same results by following the instructions here.

Download TransitQuote Pro 4.4

TransitQuote Pro 4.4 is now available to new customers on this page. 

Existing customers can download the new version by logging into the My TransitQuote area.