The development of a microcomputer based system for vehicle routing and scheduling and its use for solving spatial and temporal problems

  • Authors:

  • Lawrence D. Bodin;Daryl J. Salamone

  • Affiliations:

  • College of Business and Management University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742 USA;College of Business and Management University of Maryland College Park, Maryland 20742 USA

  • Venue:
  • Mathematical and Computer Modelling: An International Journal
  • Year:
  • 1988

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Abstract

The University of Maryland was awarded a major grant from IBM for the development of software and teaching tools using a microcomputer. At the University of Maryland, this grant was called project FULCRUM. The College of Business and Management was awarded one of the studies under FULCRUM. In this study, a software product was to be developed in order to give students the opportunity to build up their abilities to solve spatial and temporal problems using a microcomputer based interactive vehicle routing and scheduling system. The intent of this project was to show students the ease by which they can approximately solve spatial (or two dimensional) vehicle routing and scheduling problems and the difficulty involved in solving space and time (or three dimensional) vehicle routing and scheduling problems. The resulting computer system allows the student to construct his own algorithms for solving these routing and scheduling problems, have visual displays to observe the effects of his efforts and have the ability to erase a set of moves which do not appear advantageous. This system was utilized in the classroom for the first time in the Fall of 1986.