Article ID: | iaor19991549 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 10 |
Issue: | 4 |
Start Page Number: | 9 |
End Page Number: | 13 |
Publication Date: | Oct 1997 |
Journal: | OR Insight |
Authors: | Cattrysse Dirk, Lotan Tsippy, Oudheusden Dirk L. van |
Keywords: | location, vehicle routing & scheduling |
Districting involves a partition of a large area into sub-areas (districts) in order to maintain distributed operations within each sub-area. In general, each district contains at least one local centre (depot) and is independently responsible for the operations performed within its borders. The operations within each district typically involve routeing. There is a lot of work in the literature on location of depots and on routeing from given depots to a given network. However, very little work exists on the determination of district borders in a way that would ensure efficient operations. In this article the authors highlight the importance of performing good districting as a bridging step between location and routeing, and emphasise its potential to obtain improved operation schemes.