Zebreu
commented
2 years ago Tricky, the solver will try to minimize things in unexpected ways unless we are careful. We could build some support for ingesting extra columns and use those to split routes or modify cost calculations, and those parameters could be coming from a digital elevation model (I would be pleasantly surprised if open global datasets like the STRM were accurate enough for this use case) or the partner data (could be simply some strings or integers/enums). The issue is the “order dependence” of the problem: a path’s cost becomes asymmetric when a vehicle becomes loaded, which means we have a cost matrix that needs to be updated dynamically. We can probably model the transitions into high and low altitudes and pre-calculate a few matrices but or-tools might not like that, we’ll see. Most effort, a matter of weeks of experimentation probably.
BACKGROUND: A user may service some neighborhoods that are very mountainous. In order for their collection vehicles to get up the mountain, they need to travel empty to the top and collect containers on their way down REQUEST: Add a config option to optimize routes based on starting routes from maximum elevation and traveling downwards. Perhaps this might need a differential so that small hills in the zone aren’t impacted?