Planning output: gap between "input plan" / "no input plan"

[Bernd Welter]

I've been asked

My question based on the below, should the two points below give the same result?
1. Sending orders via an input plan on a single vehicle
2. Sending orders and a single vehicle via planTours.

In other words:

• At that stage I even drop the constraint of a single vehicle and put the question on a meta level
• Is there a guarantuee that the final solution of a planning is equal no matter whether we provide an input plan or not in the planTours request?

Here's my feedback:

There can be some reasons why an “input plan based result” is not equal to the “free planned result”:

• If the input plan is violated then it wil be different because a “FREE plan” is never violated
• A FREE plan does not guarantee the perfect optimum (optimization is heuristics). If the FREE plan is not the optimal one then a valid “better” input plan will return a different solution (we evaluate different potential solutions, keep the best one in mind and return the best one we experienced during a planning)

Feel free to comment on this!

Best regards,
Bernd