Time Grid

[frank.essenberger]

Hello everybody,

I have a question regarding the time grid of the route optimization. The tour planning works find in our scenario and leads results on the second scale for example:
Tour Item 1: Driving time 01:23:17 Service Start 09:00:00 Service End 10:00:00
Tour Item 2: Driving time 01:17:06 Service Start 11:17:06 Service End 11:47:06
Tour Item 3: Driving time 00:16:00 Service Start 12:03:06 Service End 13:03:06
....
Since we use the results of PTV in a web interface, where employees of the customer see the proposed start and end times the very precise timings are a bit or strange, because in the employee calendars then a appointment starts at 11:17:06 for example.

Hence my question, if it would be possible to reduce in the planning parameters the density of the time grid used in the optimization? For example to a five minute grid leading to a tour like:
Tour Item 1: Driving time 01:25:00 Service Start 09:00:00 Service End 10:00:00
Tour Item 2: Driving time 01:20:00 Service Start 11:25:00 Service End 11:55:00
Tour Item 3: Driving time 00:15:00 Service Start 12:10:00 Service End 13:10:00

Regards
Frank Essenberger

[Bernd Welter]

Hello Mr Essenberger,

unfortunately the precision of the time slots is a hard restriction and can't be aligned to a grid - though the usecase behind it is quite clear. As the resolution of this topic isn't quite obvious but depends on customers understanding we do not provide a generic approach.

One potential approach is to define the slots on order side on a matching level such as replacing the opening times (08:00 - 17:00) of a customer with several slots (08:00-09:00, 09:00-10:00, ...) but this can have a negative impact on quality and response times.

Approach #2:
perform the optimization as it is, perform the rounding on the client and reprocess the transaction in "Calculation" mode to check whether the aligned version violates some of the constraints. If it does not violate the quality of the result is probably sufficient. If it does.... well: then it depends on the customer how to deal with it.

Best regards Bernd Welter