In a Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP, an example is the Traveling Salesman Problem), we are concerned with finding optimal routes for a fleet of vehicles having to reach given destinations, e.g., in order to deliver goods to customers. Due to its high computational complexity, this task requires dedicated VRP solvers, such as VROOM. In collaboration with the VROOM project the openrouteservice (ORS) team at HeiGIT contributed a ORS routing backend to the VROOM software. Now, VROOM is able to optimize vehicle routes based on shortest paths computed by ORS using OpenStreetMap data. This offers many usage possibilities in lots of logistics and traffic applications.
A dedicated VROOM API will soon be available via openrouteservice. Stay tuned for further updates! This adds to the already remarkable list of the ORS API features including
- routing with directions for all different kinds of bicycle profiles, pedestrian, wheelchair, car and heavy vehicle
- time-distance matrices
- geocoding and reverse geocoding
- isochrones for reachability applications
- points of interest
- elevation information for points and or linestrings
plus a growing ecosystem of routing libraries for different languages such as python, R stats, JavaScript or a QGIS plugin. Find the sources on GitHub/GIScience. See also our related research on healthy, quiet and green routing, wheelchair accessibility or Landmark navigation or routing through open spaces etc.