NovaLab’s planning software, xS Planner has a vehicle routing module solves the problem of routing vehicles for distribution or collection and is especially useful for situations where a vehicle needs to visit more than a few locations throughout its tour. To solve the routing problem optimally, the algorithm must be able to simultaneously handle all available vehicles and locations to be visited. That is, because methods such as first allocating locations to vehicles and then drawing routes for each vehicle is going to end up in sub-optimal solutions, xS Planner avoids such methods and simultaneously solves allocation and sequencing problems.

 

Many different types of objectives such as minimum travelling cost, minimum number of vehicles, maximum balance of workloads among vehicles etc. are possible. In addition to these, different types of constraints such as the numbers and types of vehicles, time windows for service for each location and maximum tour duration may need to be handled.

 

Vehicle routing module can also be used for solving strategical and tactical level network design problems. Namely, the system can be used to determine the best possible depot/collection center locations while considering routing aspects or given the depot/collection center locations the system can solve for determining the best fleet mix while considering routing aspects.