Have Greater Number of Stops for Route Optimizations

[Keith_Darby]

In ArcGIS Pro, if I wanted to look at the maximum number of stops that 1 vehicle can travel is 150. In ArcGIS Online, it is 200. First, why can't you have both of these programs have at least the same amount of stops. Further, I think the number of stops should be 500. I don't think it is fair for users who have to pay the network analyst extension to get an analysis of more than 200 stops and if they are only using it on certain occasions. 

[MattCrowder]

Thank you for your feedback.

To be clear - If you're using Pro with a local network dataset or you stand up your own routing service on Enterprise, there is no hard limit to the number of stops per route.  

In ArcGIS Online, the limit is 150 stops per route. And if Pro is consuming the online routing service, the limit is also 150. The 200 limit you're referring to is most likely the Vehicle Routing Problem asynchronous service (used by the Plan Routes analysis tool) that has a limit of 200 orders per route.   This is a different, more complex solver than the simple route solver.  And it consumes more credits.  That being said, it's a good point that it appears to be inconsistent.

The limit of 150 stops per route was based on what we felt was a reasonable size for the use cases our route solver was designed to solve. I can see potentially bumping it up to 200 to be consistent with the Vehicle Routing Problem service, but we would need a compelling reason to make it higher than that.  

Can you provide more details on the problem you’re trying to solve? Are you optimizing the order of the stops? What is the spatial extent of the problem you’re trying to solve? What would the travel time typically be for such a route? Would you be using the synchronous or asynchronous service? What is your expectation for the response time?

[mihow]

I am evaluating Esri's REST services for optimizing the daily driving routes of a curbside pickup service. It works great for my sample data, however in the real data many of our pickup days have more than 150 stops, so the Route Service fails. Is there a recommended way to deal with this limit of 150 stops in a single route? If I have 155 pickups to make in a single day, how can I make multiple calls and still end up with an optimal route?

Here is the service I am using: 
https://developers.arcgis.com/rest/network/api-reference/route-asynchronous-service.htm

Thank you! 

[deelesh]

@mihow 

While the route service you are using limits the number of stops per route to 150, We have another service, Vehicle Routing Problem that supports up to 200 stops per route. 

Note that the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) service is actually performing a different analysis than the route service. The VRP service actually determines the routes to which the stops should be assigned and it also finds the best sequence to visit the stops assigned to route.

So if your analysis, for example, is to find one route that needs to visit 155 stops in a predefined sequence, the same workflow can be achieved with the VRP service if your configure your stops to preserve the route and sequence when calling the VRP service.

Also do note that the credits consumed by VRP service is significantly different than the credits used by the route service. 

But as of now, if you need to route more than 150 stops per route, the VRP service is the only available option.

I have logged an enhancement request to increase the stops per route limit on the route service to 200 so that we are consistent with the limits supported by the VRP service.

Thanks

Deelesh 

[mihow]

Thank you kindly @deelesh! I will try the Vehicle Routing Problem service. I did not realize you could preserve the routes that stops are assigned to with the VRP service. In our use case, we would like to optimize the sequence of the stops, but keep them on the same routes / days that the customers are expecting.

Best,

Michael

[MelindaMorang]

Hello Michael.

Were you able to get your work done using the information and suggestions provided by my colleagues above? If so, I will close this Idea.