Computer‐Based Routing and Scheduling in Metropolitan Regions

Urban development patterns in the United States have made distribution and collection functions in local commerce difficult. Both the geographical spread of commercial activities and local highway traffic interferences complicate efficient operations. The purpose in this paper is to describe computer‐based methods to improve the management of daily movements of vehicles and crews in regional service activities. Data requirements are discussed, and the need to account for traffic volumes in routing decisions is elaborated. Practical considerations from everyday business life present boundary conditions that must be satisfied in operations, and that simplify the classic traveling salesman routing problem. These are matters associated primarily with conditions of access to remote service sites and the times of service that must be honored to satisfy customer requirements or other organizational needs. A set of 12 application programs written for use by schedulers, dispatchers, or operating managers is used as a point of reference in the discussion. A case history illustration taken from collection operations in regional banking is also recounted.