A web spatial decision support system for vehicle routing using Google Maps

This article presents a user‐friendly web‐based spatial decision support system (wSDSS) aimed at generating optimized vehicle routes for multiple vehicle routing problems that involve serving the demand located along arcs of a transportation network. The wSDSS incorporates Google Maps^™ (cartography and network data), a database, a heuristic and an ant‐colony meta‐heuristic developed by the authors to generate routes and detailed individual vehicle route maps. It accommodates realistic system specifics, such as vehicle capacity and shift time constraints, as well as network constraints such as one‐way streets and prohibited turns. The wSDSS can be used for ‘what‐if’ analysis related to possible changes to input parameters such as vehicle capacity, maximum driving shift time, seasonal variations of demand, network modifications, and imposed arc orientations. Since just a web browser is needed, it can be easily adapted to be widely used in many real‐world situations. The system was tested for urban trash collection in Coimbra, Portugal.