MIO question

Question

Hi,

We are currently utilizing MIO to generate our scheduling. One of our customers has requested a modification: they would like certain customers to be scheduled first, even if they are located farther away from starting location. Although we have attempted to address this by using the priority parameter, the schedule still incorrectly prioritizes the nearest records first.

Is there a way to configure MIO to ensure that records with higher priority are scheduled first?

I understand that MIO support is scheduled to end in June. However, we would appreciate any assistance you can provide regarding this matter during the remaining support period.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The MIO service does have a priority input value for itinerary items that you can set. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/bingmaps/rest-services/routes/optimized-itinerary-data

From the docs:

Each itinerary item is given an item priority (from 1 to 100) and the Multi-Itinerary Optimization API will always first attempt to maximize the sum of scheduled items priorities. Note that Priority 1 is the lowest priority and 100 is the highest priority. Multiple itinerary items can have the same priority value. If all items have a priority of 1 (the default value), then the API maximizes the number, or count, of scheduled items. In addition, the costvalue parameter can be set to either TravelTime or Distance: this parameter will then minimize the travel time or distance traveled, respectively, for the scheduled items.

I believe this does try and order the by priority but doesn't do a strict ordering based on it.

As you are aware the MIO service will be retired in the future. Here are some useful resources on alternatives:

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-maps/itinerary-optimization-service
• https://github.com/microsoft/dstoolkit-route-optimization
• https://github.com/kiegroup/optaplanner
• https://github.com/VROOM-Project/vroom
• https://github.com/reinterpretcat/vrp
• https://developers.google.com/optimization/routing/

Answer 2

Hi Ricky,

Thanks for your response.

We tried, but it's not working properly. For testing purposes, we took only two records: we set priority 1 for one record and priority 20 for the other. We take start location near to first record and ran the code. It scheduled the first record first and then the second. However, according to priority, it should have scheduled the second record first and then the first.

Is there a way to instruct MIO to schedule based on priority?

Also, the links you provided are not working.

Is there any third-party API that we can use directly, similar to how we used MIO?

Thanks