Definition
A Work Area Design or WAD is your route structure. It is how subscribers get assigned to a route and maintain their sequence order.
Every WAD contains 3 components. They are: Streets, Overrides and Sequence values.
The WAD is a digital list of all streets within your delivery footprint and every street is associated with Link IDs.
Every street (Link ID) is assigned to a route. When subscribers are geocoded or plotted to a street (Link ID) it will be assigned to the route for that street/Link ID.
When a specific address needs to be on a different route, you can enter an override for that address. An override is used to assign an address to a route different than the WAD Route.
Along with routing, the sequence order for every route is stored within each WAD. If you have more than 1 WAD, each will have its own Override and Sequence file.
EXAMPLES
Here’s an example of Main Street from 1 through 99 in zip code 12345. It has a Link ID 59725366
All accounts that plot to Link ID 59725366 will be assigned to route 2233001. Based on the size of the geography, a WAD may contain thousands or tens of thousands of Link IDs.
Some streets have just 1 Link ID and some have multiple Link IDs. The difference will be size. For example, a street that is 5 miles will have more Link IDs than a street that is ½ a mile.