Shipping Route Generation Help

[David]

Hi All,

I created a database that would allow us to take in customer orders for
scheduled deliveries, and generate unique tickets for each shipment. One
customer could place an order for 20 deliveries or more, so each delivery
requires its own ticket. The problem I am having is that at the end of the
day the next days schedule for the drivers must be created. The current way
we create the schedule is by taking in all of tomorrows orders by phone,
writing them down on paper, and then at the end of the day writing up
schedules of 5 or 6 deliveries per driver. Some drivers have the same
scheduled deliveries as others. I will need to be able to make a simple
route generation interface for people who aren't computer friendly. I think
a drag and drop interface would be the easiest for them to manuever. For
example:

The person creating the routes could see a list of all the orders for the
next day, drag one delivery to an open field, have the count of the
remaining deliveries decrement, repeat for the rest of that routes
deliveries, assign drivers to routes, verify no duplicate drivers exist for
date(), write the required information to my tables, and then save this info
in case we need to research routes for a specific day.

Does anyone have any ideas of a technology that I could use to create this
solution that will easily interface with my database? I know this is a lot
to throw out there. This is why I'm pulling my hair out over it. lol

I've heard that VB will be able to do this, but I don't know this language.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Dave

 

[NetworkTrade]

One can drag & drop a delivery address from a Master List over to a driver's
list just using Word....

I don't mean to be snarky....just that in terms of that - it really isn't a
DB...just a drag and drop exercise....

I believe fundamentally what you describe is a 'sort'......if you take a DB
approach...

But from all your orders it is not clear what the sort criteria
is....zipcode?.....

If you have 100 orders / deliveries to be split correctly between 5 delivery
drivers...what is the correct method to do this sort? If experienced
employees just "know" because they know the territory by heart...then having
them split up the master list simply using Word maybe is the way to go.....

To have a DB do the split however at this point it is not a question of
Visual Basic...but rather determining the logic for correctly sorting the 100
into 5 groups of 20....

One would guess that for delivery efficiency geographical proximity is the
key...and other than zipcode I don't know of any data in your fields that
would allow a programmatic way to do it...

You could matrix out defined delivery zones with a set of street names and
numbers.....and then assign deliveries to a zone based on the address...but
building that zone DB is a real big job....

 

[David]

Thanks fo rthe response networktrade.

It's not really about the computer creating the routes. We have about 30
drivers and each driver averages about 5 deliveries a day. The trucks work
in NYC so the routes have to be created manually because we have to take
into account tolls and bridges. We try not to cross tolls or bridges with
the trucks empty. This makes for difficult route planning. The owner knows
the area so well that he plans the routes. I am trying to make it easy for
him to create these routes on the computer. I'm trying to avoid printing
out the orders, having him create the routes, and then have to manually
enter them back into the database.

Thanks,

Dave