Vehicle Route Planning and Optimization via logvrp

This document will guide you how to do Vehicle Fleet Planning and Route Optimization using logvrp.

In summary the steps are:

Stations needs to be defined. "Stations" in logvrp are, locations such as depots, customers, addresses of passengers, stops, etc.
Orders needs to be defined. "Orders" in logvrp are, customer service requests, visits, delivery/pick-up jobs, from where to where what will be transfered, etc.
Vehicles needs to be defined. "Vehicles" in logvrp are, vehicles that will serve the orders, such as cars, vans, motorcycles, minibus etc.
Calculation Settings (how many routes, how much time etc.) needs to be specified.
You must specify the optimization goal.
Routes are calculated from logvrp by clicking "Calculate Routes" button.

The above steps are described in detail below:

Stations are locations such as depots, customers, addresses of passengers, stops, etc.

You can use one of two methods in order to define stations:

You can define stations manually by clicking on the Map. Click on the link to learn how to define: "to create stations manually".
You can define stations by importing Excel/CSV file into the application. Click on the link to learn how to do: "to import stations from an Excel/CSV file".

You can see them in the "Stations Tab" and on the map with blue and red symbols as below.

Orders are customer service requests, visits, delivery/pick-up jobs, from where to where what will be transfered, etc.

You can use one of two methods in order to define the orders:

You can define orders manually by clicking on "Add Order" button. Click to the link to learn how to do: "to create orders manually".
You can define orders by importing Excel/CSV file into the application. Click on the link to learn how to do: "to import orders from an Excel/CSV file".

You can see them in the Orders Tab as below. You can show the order arrows on the Map, by clicking "hide show orders" button.

You can use one of two methods in order to define vehicles:

You can define a vehicle by clicking "Add Vehicle" button. Click on the link to learn how to do: "to create a vehicle manually".

You can import vehicles from an Excel/CSV file into the application. Click on the link to learn how to do: "to import vehicle from an Excel/CSV file".

You can see them in the Fleet Tab and on the map with vehicle symbol as below.

Necessary parameters and constraints to be used in the calculation are needs to be specified.

In the "Computation" tab, you can do the following :

Unit Tab: "Currency", "Distance Unit" and "On Calculation Use" settings can be set.

Constraint Tab: Necessary constraints and parameters can be set. Usually their standard values will be enough.

Optimization Tab: Before the calculation, choose primary "Optimization Goal" under the Optimization Tab.

After all constraints and parameters are set, you should save them by clicking "Save" button.

Before the calculation, choose primary "Optimization Goal" under the Optimization Tab.

Possible Optimization Goals:

Balance: logvrp, will try to optimize mainly based on cost and distance together. (recommended)
Cost: "Price" priority optimization calculation.
Distance: "Distance" priority optimization calculation.
Total Time: "Total Time" priority optimization calculation.
Route Count: "Total Time" priority optimization calculation.
Vehicle Decision: Choose this option only if you do not have/own a fixed fleet of vehicles and you want logvrp to find/recommend vehicles that can serve the orders. When the optimization goal is "Vehicle Decision", logvrp tries to find number of vehicles that will be needed for the operation, starting positon of each vehicle. Then logvrp calculates route plans for those vehicles. If you want to use this optimization goal,

Firstly choose "Vehicle Decision" and save.
Then create only one vehicle with starting position set to undefined. logvrp will use this vehicle as a reference vehicle when determining how many such vehicles will be needed for the operation.