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Hello Rasmus, We have a few videos that might be helpful for understanding how to set up your problem. Both videos work through the same demos but this one uses ArcGIS Pro and this one uses ArcMap depending on what you have available. From your description above my question would be how much of the straw bales is at each of the storage facilities? If it is above the level that can be carried by a single vehicle, duplicate orders will need to be used at that storage facility with the quantity broken down into groupings that are capable to be picked up by a single vehicle. For example (making the numbers easy) if a truck can carry 10 tons and there are 37 tons at the storage facility. Then four orders would be needed to represent that storage facility. Three of them would have a pickup quantity of 10 and the fourth a quantity of 7. Hope this helps, Heather
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02-26-2021
03:20 PM
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This sounds like an interesting use case and not something I've heard before. I don't think this is something fully supported by the VRP solver but something to try would be using two sets of order pairs, one going from location 1 to location 2 and one going from location 2 back to location 1. If on the routes you also add a small ArriveDepartDelay it will encourage the solver to stop at orders at the same location consecutively and by the same route. The ArriveDepartDelay will add time to the route for each stop the vehicle makes. If multiple orders are at the same exact location and visited consecutively the time is only added once because the vehicle only arrives and departs once for all of those coincident orders. This should encourage the drop off of the first order pair and the pick up of the second order pair to happen consecutively. It is certainly not a guarantee but maybe it will get most of the round trips correct and only a few would need adjusting by hand.
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02-17-2021
04:10 PM
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Can you check the status messages for that solve? I believe it should be giving an error message about the orders in the order pairs being reused. An order can only be in one order pair so using the same orders for the order pair that connects the delivery to the pickup should be what is causing the problem.
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02-08-2021
06:19 PM
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I'm trying to understand your problem a little more. It seems like you are wanting one driver to pick up someone/something at location 1, drive to location 2 and then back to location 1 with that same person or item. Is this correct? Is there a certain amount of time at location 2 that the person or item needs to stay there? and if so can the driver go to a different location to pick up a different order during that time or does the full round trip need to happen before the driver can do anything else? If the driver is allowed to do something else while waiting for picking back up from location 2 is it possible to then have two orders on the vehicle at once or would a full pickup and drop off need to be done during that time? When expanding the problem to multiple routes, is it a hard requirement that the return trip is done by the same vehicle/driver or could that be done by a different route in the area?
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02-08-2021
05:44 PM
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As mentioned above the Orders and Routes have ViolatedConstraints fields that should provide some more detail about why it is not solving. The Status field on the orders might also give a clue if they are not locating correctly.
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02-08-2021
05:27 PM
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Thanks for the suggestion. We are in the early stages of discussing how to handle datetime fields for network analyst layers and will consider this requirement as we move forward with those talks.
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11-25-2020
10:02 AM
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The method you describe of making multiple copies of the routes for each day is what is recommended for this type of problem. The solver will only use the number of routes that are needed and so by adding more then is expected it should help you determine how many routes are needed.
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11-25-2020
09:26 AM
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Hi Nelson, I have been able to reproduce the selection not being honored by the solve VRP GP tool. We are looking into fixing this. In the mean time if you are working within the app my best suggestion is to save a temporary copy of your feature class with just the portion you are interested in for the solve. And if you are working within a python script the Network Analyst module (arcpy.nax) will honor the selections when solved. I, however, am not able to reproduce the output pickup quantities showing as zero instead of showing the number you have for inputs. If you continue to have this issue, please open a support ticket.
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09-28-2020
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Hi Ihab, From that warning message it looks like you also have orders with an assignment rule of preserve route or preserve route and relative sequence. True? If so then no we do not have a mechanism for continuing the solve with the remaining orders. When orders are given these assignment rules we first check to see if the route is feasible and if not error out because something is likely wrong with the problem set up that was not intentional from the user.
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09-24-2020
04:35 PM
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With adding layer and ribbon support to VRP in ArcGIS Pro 2.6 we also updated the schema of the solver. More details on that can be found here. Although the Solve Vehicle Routing Problem Tool did not have any changes to the tool functionality, it now goes through a bit of translation code to change the schema to the new format to send to the solver. We have seen some changes in the outputs between nulls and zeros as a result of this. If you are seeing functional differences please report these so we can look into them. And if you are working within the ArcGIS Pro application, I would encourage you to look into using the layer and ribbon capabilities we added for VRP in ArcGIS Pro 2.6.
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08-28-2020
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Thank you for pointing out the continued need for this improvement. With Pro 2.6 we do not have any new capabilities in this area. I will bring up the need to the team for further consideration at our next planning meeting.
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08-18-2020
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Hello Rima, Interesting question, I would like to make sure I understand it correctly. By priority you are wanting to designate the set of orders that are visited before any other order on the route that it is assigned, there might be more than one of these high priority orders on a route, and it doesn't matter which route is servicing them just that they are first up in the day. Is that correct? Assuming I have that correct, lets first recap the options you have looked into to give some explanation on each. 1. Revenue - The workflow that you mentioned for revenue is using a slightly different definition for priority. It is for when there are more orders in the problem then can be serviced by the routes available, then the high priority orders will be assigned to routes over lower priority ones. It however does not give preference to the timing of when those orders are visited, just that they are visited. 2. Preserve Route and Relative Sequence - This method would keep the orders towards the beginning of the route but it does allow for orders to be inserted in front of the first order or in between other orders, so it would not guarantee keeping the high priority orders at the very beginning of the route. I am concerned about you getting an error message for this assignment rule but not Preserve Route. If you do not think you should be getting the error message or it is not descriptive enough, we can try to work through that also or you can open a support ticket and we can dig into it more. 3. Preserve Route - This again will just keep the orders on a specific route but does not give any preference to keeping them at the beginning. 4. Anchor First - This does keep the orders at the first of the route but as you have pointed out it only allows for one order per route so it doesn't quite fit what you are looking for with needing a few orders serviced at the very beginning. An option I think will work for you is to put tight time windows on the orders that need to be visited before other orders on the routes. In your example if the four routes were to start at 8:00 am sharp then for the six orders that need to be serviced first, give them a time window between 8:00 and 8:10 am. As long as the max violation time is not set to 0, then the solver can visit these late but will try to meet the time windows as close as possible. Setting the Time Window Violation Importance parameter to High will make the "penalty" for the algorithm to visit these orders late even higher further incentivising visiting them first on the route. Based on your specific problem set up, such as service time and how far away orders are from the depot, you may need to adjust the time windows. Hope this helps, Heather
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08-18-2020
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With the 24 depots, does the route need to go back to the exact same depot where it started or are you wanting it to have flexibility to go to any of those depots, it just has to be there by the 8 hour mark? Your method of making copies of the routes with a MaxTotalTime of 8 hours is what I would suggest for this scenario in most cases. However, I have suggested in a few cases where breaks have to take place at a certain time and location that it can be modeled using an order with a time window and then either use the assignment rule or specialties to connect it to a specific route. Using revenue for the orders that are breaks can also make sure that those are assigned even if out of the way. Something to experiment with if the first option isn't working the way you need it. Hope that helps, Heather
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08-06-2020
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Hello, It would be great to know a bit more about the problem you are trying to solve with balancing the order count. If you are expecting the routes modeled in the problem to all be used, then you could take the total number of orders and divide by the number of routes to understand what a completely even distribution would be. From there you could add a few to that number and set it as your MaxOrderCount for all routes. That would give the solver a little play in the number of orders on a route but would mostly balance the count among routes. Hope this helps, Heather
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08-06-2020
11:14 AM
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It is with great excitement that I announce with ArcGIS Pro 2.6, we have added full ribbon and layer support for the Vehicle Routing Problem. This experience should match workflows similar to the other Network Analyst solvers. We also added a few new tricks to help make things easier to access across all the solvers. The first step is to make a new VRP layer. On the Analysis tab, look for the Network Analysis icon and click on the drop-down. Here you choose one of the Network Analyst solvers and it now includes the Vehicle Routing Problem. At the bottom of this dropdown menu is the network data source that will be used to create the layer. Make sure this points to the correct local network data source or portal location before choosing Vehicle Routing Problem. Looking in the Contents Pane, you should now see the newly created VRP layer. We have made some changes to the VRP feature classes, tables, and fields within the tables compared to what is historically used in ArcMap and our Services. This ArcGIS Pro help page explains the different fields within the tables and feature classes of a VRP layer. If you are used to the schema from these other platforms this help page describes the differences. Let’s, now, look at the new VRP ribbon. In the TOC, select any part of the VRP layer and the VRP contextual tab should appear. Select that VRP tab and you should see the ribbon. Analysis There are a lot of options on this ribbon so let’s break it down by section. Going from left to right, let’s start with the Analysis section. Here you will find a single button called Run. The run button is what actually starts the solve with the layer data and all the parameter settings. If the layer is pointing to ArcGIS Online as its network dataset, then running the solver will consume credits. Input Data The next section of the VRP ribbon is Input Data. This section is devoted to getting data into the sub-layers and -tables for the VRP layer. There are a lot of sub-layers and -tables. So, we have made prominent importing the four main layers: Orders, Depots, Routes and Breaks. At a minimum every VRP layer must define the Orders, Depots, and Routes. These buttons open the Add Locations GP tool, which allows data to be added from a feature class or table. The other sub-layers and -tables are accessed from the two groupings buttons with a dropdown arrow. The last button in this section is the Create Features button. This opens the Create Features Pane used to manually digitize locations on the map. This can also be accessed from the Edit Ribbon. However, when using the button on the VRP ribbon it filters the feature classes that display in the Create Features Pane to those associated with the current layer. The create features button was added to all the Network Analyst solver ribbons. The last thing of note for the Input Data section is that Import Routes and Import Breaks both have a dropdown arrow. Clicking on these dropdowns shows the option of either importing or adding. We have added two new GP tools: Add Vehicle Routing Problem Routes and Add Vehicle Routing Problem Breaks. These two tools help create Routes or Breaks from business constraints by walking through the different parameters. Both will also allow for making multiple copies of the same parameters with one run of the tool. Travel Settings Next in the VRP ribbon is Travel Settings. Here you set the travel mode to be used by the solver. Only time-based impedance travel modes can be used with the VRP solver. Therefore, they are the only options displayed in the Mode dropdown. If you need to tweak the travel mode settings for your model, the small launcher button at the bottom of the Travel Settings group opens the layer property pages to the Travel Mode page. Also, in this section you set the units used for the time and distance-based fields for the whole problem. The units used for these settings do not need to match the units used by the travel mode. Default Date The next section of the ribbon is Default Date. In this group, you indicate what day the problem should use for solving. This is used when only times are given in time window fields. Also, in this group, is a parameter setting new to the ArcGIS Pro Ribbon for all solvers, the Reference Time Zone. This allows you to indicate if the time windows are based on UTC or the time zone at the location. This setting is very important when the locations within a single model span multiple time zones. Output Geometry Next in the VRP ribbon is Output Geometry. This allows you to determine how the route shapes will be drawn. The options include along the road network following the actual path the vehicle will take, straight lines just connecting one location to the next, or no lines at all. This affects only the geometry displayed for the routes. It does not change the actual calculations for how that route will be traversed. Advanced The settings in the Advanced section allow you to influence the solution of the solver. There is extra help to understand each of these in the dropdown. So, if you decide to change these values from the defaults, please take the extra time to read them to understand how the parameters work. Time Window Importance determines how much emphasis the solver places on meeting the time windows vs having the least cost (total time, total distance, etc.) solution. Transit Time Importance is only a useful parameter if Order Pairs are in the problem. If so, it then influences allowing an order to be on the vehicle for longer before it is dropped off to save time or distance (mostly used for transporting packages) vs taking the order more directly to its drop off location (mostly used for transporting people). The last parameter is Spatial Clustering. This allows you to decide if you would prefer a solution that clusters orders onto routes in the same geographic area (such as all in the same neighborhood) or if you would prefer the lowest cost solution allowing routes to cross geographic regions. Directions and Share As The last two sections of the VRP ribbon, Directions and Share As, are all about getting the route direction information to the drivers. The Directions section will allow you to print turn by turn directions for the routes. While, The Share As section creates route layers for ArcGIS Online and used in Navigator. Hopefully this has helped orient you to the new VRP Layer and Ribbon. Checkout our help page for more information. Please reach out if you have any questions.
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07-29-2020
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