Route Optimization

What it covers

It goes from the simplest problem to the one a real operation faces, adding one constraint per module, and ends with what happens once the route leaves the depot.

1. Why routing is hardThe travelling salesman, the combinatorial explosion, and why building routes by hand works until it stops working.
2. Capacitated routingThe classic VRP: capacitated vehicles, one depot, customers with demand. The formulation, and the size beyond which an exact solver no longer copes.
3. Time windowsCustomers who receive from 8 to 11. How the problem changes when arriving early means waiting and arriving late means not delivering.
4. Mixed fleetsTrucks of different sizes and costs, shifts, drivers and permits. The real cost of sending out one more vehicle.
5. Construction heuristicsNearest neighbour, Clarke and Wright savings, insertion. How to build a good first solution in milliseconds.
6. Local search and metaheuristics2-opt, moves between routes and large neighbourhood search. How to improve a solution without checking every possible one.
7. Real distances and timesThe distance matrix with streets, one-ways and time-of-day traffic. How much the straight line lies, and where it lies most.
8. Multiple depots and pickupsDelivering and collecting on the same route, several starting points and partial returns to the depot.
9. Dynamic routingOrders that arrive with routes already on the road. Re-routing without undoing what is already working.
10. Last mileMany stops, little volume per stop, failed deliveries and short windows. What changes from truck routing to urban delivery.
11. Measuring a routeKilometres, cost per delivery, window compliance and balance between drivers. Which number gets optimized and which one gets watched.
12. What the optimal route does not knowThe driver who knows the block, the customer who opens late, the closed street. How to feed back what is learned on the road.