Hi everyone,
We're working with the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) solver in ArcGIS Pro and running into an issue with route optimization due to the MaxOrderCount parameter.
Scenario:
We have 20 volunteers (each one is a separate vehicle/route) and 100 patients (orders).
Each volunteer starts from a different depot (StartDepotName).
We want the VRP solver to automatically assign the optimal orders to each volunteer, based on proximity and constraints — without forcing a hard limit on how many patients each volunteer can visit.
Problem:
The MaxOrderCount field does not accept NULL, so we're forced to enter a value.
If we set MaxOrderCount = 5, it causes inefficient routing — for example, Volunteer #2 might be close to Patients 6 and 7, but is already full with 5 orders, so those patients are assigned to a further-away volunteer instead.
We tried increasing the value (e.g., to 10), but then the solver excluded some volunteers entirely, using fewer routes than we'd like.
Our Goal:
We want the VRP to:
Use all available volunteers (vehicles)
Let the solver determine how many orders each one should take (as long as it's feasible)
Avoid forcing a low MaxOrderCount that results in inefficient routes
Questions:
Is there a way to configure VRP in ArcGIS Pro so that all routes (volunteers) are considered without setting a strict MaxOrderCount?
Can we remove or "disable" the max order constraint for each vehicle while still ensuring all routes are used?
Are there best practices or advanced settings (e.g., via the Network Analyst layer or Python) that would help here?
Thanks in advance for any guidance or workarounds!
We want to make sure we're using the VRP tool to its full potential for a community rural healthcare initiative.
