Time windows and route segment

Time Windows

Time Windows restrict the time which the Driver is allowed to visit a given Job.

This is often used for:

• Service Levels agreed with the customer
• Appointments agreed with the customer
• Deliver windows promised to the customer
• Opening hours of the customer
• Restricting access to a customer at a certain time of day (e.g. because of traffic, school zones, lunch, vehicle restrictions etc)

You can set Time Windows using the arrive_after and leave_by attributes on each Job.

You can set both values, one of the values, or neither.

If it is not possible to serve a Job within its Time Window, the Job will be unserved.

Multi-shift

In a multi-shift request these two fields become recurring service hours: the same clock times on every Planning Day. They cannot cross midnight. To restrict a Job to particular days, or to an overnight window, use job.multi_shift.serve_within instead.

Note

arrive_after constrains the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) of a Job

leave_by constrains the ETD (Estimated Time of Departure) of a Job.

So, if you want to force a job to be served at an exact time, you should set

job.arrive_after = time_to_arrive_at_the_job
job.leave_by = time_to_arrive_at_the_job + job.parking_duration + job.duration

Examples

{
   "uid": "uid1",
   "duration": 2,
   "leave_by": 14,
   "location": {"lat": -33.849489, "lon": 151.127482}
 }

{
   "uid": "uid1",
   "duration": 2,
   "arrive_after": 9,
   "leave_by": 10,
   "location": {"lat": -33.849489, "lon": 151.127482}
 }

{
   "uid": "uid1",
   "duration": 2,
   "arrive_after": 18,
   "location": {"lat": -33.849489, "lon": 151.127482}
 }

{
   "uid": "uid1",
   "duration": 2,
   "arrive_after": 9,
   "leave_by": 15,
   "location": {"lat": -33.849489, "lon": 151.127482}
 }

Route Segment

route_segment restricts where a Job may appear within a Driver's route. It is useful when you need to fix important Jobs to the beginning or end of a route.

Allowed values are:

• null (default): the Job may be served anywhere in the route.
• "start": the Job must be served in the initial contiguous segment of the route.
• "end": the Job must be served in the final contiguous segment of the route.

The intended route shape is:

Driver start -> start jobs -> anywhere jobs -> end jobs -> Driver end

Multiple "start" Jobs may be served consecutively at the beginning of the same route. Likewise, multiple "end" Jobs may be served consecutively at the end of the same route.

Fixing the first Job in a route

To force a Job to be served first, set:

"route_segment": "start"

If it is the only "start" Job assigned to that Driver's route, it will be the first Job in that route.

If multiple Jobs with "route_segment": "start" are assigned to the same route, they may be served consecutively at the beginning of the route in any optimiser-chosen order.

Note

route_segment = "start" does not mean the Job must be the single first Job in a route when multiple start-segment Jobs are present. It means the Job must be part of the route's initial block of start-segment Jobs.

route_segment = "end" does not mean the Job must be the single last Job in a route when multiple end-segment Jobs are present. It means the Job must be part of the route's final block of end-segment Jobs.

route_segment is a placement constraint. It does not make a Job mandatory and does not change Job priority or unserved penalties.

In a multi-shift request, reset applies route_segment inside each Shift independently. continue applies it across the Driver's whole journey.

Example

{
  "drivers": [
    {
      "uid": "driver_1",
      "shift_start": 8,
      "shift_end": 17,
      "start": {"lat": -33.867798, "lon": 151.166256},
      "end": "start"
    }
  ],
  "jobs": [
    {
      "uid": "job_start_1",
      "duration": 10,
      "route_segment": "start",
      "location": {"lat": -33.849489, "lon": 151.127482}
    },
    {
      "uid": "job_any_1",
      "duration": 10,
      "route_segment": null,
      "location": {"lat": -33.880661, "lon": 151.183096}
    },
    {
      "uid": "job_end_1",
      "duration": 10,
      "route_segment": "end",
      "location": {"lat": -33.913168, "lon": 151.262267}
    }
  ],
  "settings": {}
}