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Is this possible ?

  • 20-01-2021 4:58pm
    #1
    Ish66
    Registered Users Posts: 462 ✭✭


    I work for a large courier company (TNT). Is it possible for a driver to scan his drops for the day using a barcode scanner and then using Google maps, sort them by order in which to drop first etc or reverse them so you do your furthest drop first and during the day work your way back to base. All the vehicles have sat tracking.
    I also drove with them for years so could fill you in as to what's needed.
    Get your thinking caps on !n ! !: PS I know it would be a massive earner for the developer.:D


Comments

  • #2
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users Posts: 28,289 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Here's a list of nearly 100 route planning system available on the market. I implemented one of these about 30 years ago.

    https://www.capterra.com/route-planning-software/


  • #3
    galvo_clare
    Registered Users Posts: 668 ✭✭✭galvo_clare


    Garmin satnavs have this feature too but wouldn’t be as easy to use.
    Ish66 wrote: »
    I work for a large courier company (TNT). Is it possible for a driver to scan his drops for the day using a barcode scanner and then using Google maps, sort them by order in which to drop first etc or reverse them so you do your furthest drop first and during the day work your way back to base. All the vehicles have sat tracking.
    I also drove with them for years so could fill you in as to what's needed.
    Get your thinking caps on !n ! !: PS I know it would be a massive earner for the developer.:D


  • #4
    Anjobe
    Registered Users Posts: 1,445 ✭✭✭Anjobe


    Ish66 wrote: »
    I work for a large courier company (TNT). Is it possible for a driver to scan his drops for the day using a barcode scanner and then using Google maps, sort them by order in which to drop first etc or reverse them so you do your furthest drop first and during the day work your way back to base. All the vehicles have sat tracking.
    I also drove with them for years so could fill you in as to what's needed.
    Get your thinking caps on !n ! !: PS I know it would be a massive earner for the developer.:D

    That is essentially the travelling salesman problem, a very well known NP-complete problem in theoretical computer science. It should be easy to find an optimised solution for a relatively small number of nodes.


  • #5
    BrokenArrows
    Registered Users Posts: 7,500 ✭✭✭BrokenArrows


    I would be very surprised if a company like TNT dont already have that system in place.


  • #6
    Jim2007
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators Posts: 9,979 Mod ✭✭✭✭Jim2007


    Ish66 wrote: »
    I work for a large courier company (TNT). Is it possible for a driver to scan his drops for the day using a barcode scanner and then using Google maps, sort them by order in which to drop first etc or reverse them so you do your furthest drop first and during the day work your way back to base. All the vehicles have sat tracking.
    I also drove with them for years so could fill you in as to what's needed.
    Get your thinking caps on !n ! !: PS I know it would be a massive earner for the developer.:D


    Of course you do.... NOT. That is unless you are willing to pay one of us to do it.


    This problem has been solved countless times over at this stage. I did one thirty years a go to manager shipments in Europe for one of the well know Japanese electronics companies.


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  • #7
    SilverSideUp
    Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭SilverSideUp


    Ish66 wrote: »
    I work for a large courier company (TNT). Is it possible for a driver to scan his drops for the day using a barcode scanner and then using Google maps, sort them by order in which to drop first etc or reverse them so you do your furthest drop first and during the day work your way back to base. All the vehicles have sat tracking.
    I also drove with them for years so could fill you in as to what's needed.
    Get your thinking caps on !n ! !: PS I know it would be a massive earner for the developer.:D

    You're absolutely right. The lucky developer would get $1 million dollars. A solution to this problem is part of the Millenium Prize.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems


  • #8
    Rulmeq
    Registered Users Posts: 1,056 ✭✭✭Rulmeq


    SilverSideUp wrote: »
    You're absolutely right. The lucky developer would get $1 million dollars. A solution to this problem is part of the Millenium Prize.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems


    https://xkcd.com/664/
    The hover text on this one makes it.


  • #9
    SilverSideUp
    Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭SilverSideUp


    Rulmeq wrote: »
    https://xkcd.com/664/
    The hover text on this one makes it.

    A fun read when you take your break while trying to solve this problem...

    'In February 2018, the Washington Post reported that it would take at least 1,000 years for a computer to find an optimal route to only 22 points. So we were excited a couple of years ago when we computed the shortest possible walk to 24,727 pubs.'

    http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/tsp/uk/index.html


  • #10
    GetWithIt
    Registered Users Posts: 2,081 ✭✭✭GetWithIt


    I created this website which provides a solution to the problem in about 30 minutes with zero code. The UX is a bit noddy but that wasn’t the point.

    https://esriireland.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=4a84c66dd7d04d8d8cbf19b20e56d582

    The problem has been solved by pretty much every provider of location based services.


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