Microcomputer-based vehicle routing and scheduling: An overview

Technical Report · Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6203643· OSTI ID:6203643

Klein, A. J.

Commercially available vehicle-routing and scheduling packages were surveyed to assess capabilities, categorize key characteristics, compare individual packages, and select candidate software for additional testing. Among the key characteristics addressed were backhauling, distance and vehicle travel-time calculation, geocoding, speed zones, natural barriers, time-window constraints, vehicle/stop matching constraints, and other constraints such as vehicle/driver operating costs. The survey included review of vendor literature, telephone interviews, site visits to review software, and the testing of demonstration packages on a set of sample distribution networks. Thirteen packages were reviewed; these were categorized by price and performance as follows; (1) inexpensive packages (costing $2000 or less), which solve the basic vehicle-routing problem but are somewhat limited in their ability to handle large numbers of vehicles and stops; (2) medium-priced systems (from $5000 to $20,000), which offer more capability to handle constraints such as multiple pickup and delivery, time windows, and multiple depots and provide manual intervention capability and enhanced graphics; (3) very expensive systems (from $50,000 to about $150,000), which can handle real-time situations in scheduling last-minute route changes and employ sophisticated graphics tools to change route schedules interactively. Out of the 13 packages, four demonstration vehicle-routing packages were obtained for testing of 4 sample networks; two of the packages were found to be capable of solving most vehicle-routing problem constraints for two versions of 21-city and 30-city networks.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 6203643
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM-10333; ON: DE88000041
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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