A vehicle with a positional tracking unit traverses a specific route while collecting actual route data that includes position data indicative of the actual route followed. The actual route data (including the position data) is stored as optimal route data for that specific route. Once the optimal route is defined and stored, future positional data (i.e., actual route data) collected during subsequent vehicle traversal of that specific route can be compared to the optimal route data. Whenever subsequently collected actual route data represents an improvement, as determined by one or more predefined criteria, the actual route data replaces the previously obtained optimal route data. Exception reports can be automatically generated by comparing the optimal route data to subsequently collected actual route data to determine when a deviation has occurred.