Question

Provide/discuss some examples where the application of traveling salesman or vehicle routing methods can improve the transportation efficiency. (Unique, Within 200-250 Words, No Handwriting Please)

Answer 1

Traveling salesman or vehicle routing methods are particularly useful for optimization of network connections in a supply chain for a business. These methods are useful in network planning, logistics routing and scheduling that would make the supply chain more efficient and productive.

These methods are most commonly used in distribution type businesses such as e-commerce delivery, postal services, sales or in transportation problems for any product based industry such as pharmaceuticals, food, agriculture and many more.

UPS and Amazon rely on these optimization algorithms to set up and plan the distribution of their shipments in regional pockets.

Public Transportation Systems such as railways and roadways use the vehicle routing methods to find the shortest route with multiple stops in a long distance journey.

DHL, FedEx and other logistics companies deploy these methods to find the feasibility of operations along a route, to plan the resources need that would be needed for shipping goods or to continuously optimize the routes on which trucks ply based on new infrastructural developments in that geography.

Big warehousing companies such as Amazon and DHL also use these algorithms to find the most efficient route inside a warehouse to move goods from inbound location to the placement location of goods.

Multiple airline companies use the travelling salesman problem to set schedule of the its crew that is moving from base location to multiple locations on multiple flights, helping the company manage the human resource utilization and monitoring.