I'm solving a vehicle routing problem (VRP) in which county staff from three different locations visit 500 stores that sell tobacco products. I'm new to network analysis and am trying figure out the overlap/equivalencies in Network Analyst and Business Analyst tools. To partition the stores (VRP orders) by county facility, I ran the BA Assign Customers by Distance tool because it adds an attribute for each store that assigns it to one of three facilities (VRP depots): South County, Merrifield, and Chantilly. I found this attribute useful because I can select by attribute and import Chantilly orders and run the VRP solver against the smaller dataset (110 orders) using 5 vehicles. I can then run the VRP two more times for the other two depots and their respective orders and vehicles.
Is this the best way to do this for the three depots? Does Network Analyst have an equivalent tool that adds an attribute to orders to identify the depot they're assigned to?
I appreciate any help offered.
