API

The reference documentation for the planning api can be found here.

Concepts

A high-level, functional description of the concepts used in the planning API.

Planning

A planning is the combination of all input data (Orders, Resource Combinations) and the optimized results (Route).
A (part) of a planning can be released when the optimized result is considered good enough. The released result of a planning can be fetched with this API to update downstream systems.

Release

When a planner releases one or more routes, a release is created which contains all of those routes. By default, subsequent releases always contain all the routes of a previous release, unless those routes were explicitly excluded from the new release.

At the time of writing, it is only possible to fetch the latest release of a planning and releases are only stored for 2 weeks.

Route

A route is the optimized result combining a single resource combination with a set of orders in a cost effective and feasible way.
A route is sub-divided in 1 or more trips.

Trip

A trip is an independently executable part of a route that consists of two or more stops.
A trip starts at the moment a truck is no longer empty (first pickup) until it is empty again (last delivery). This can happen multiple times in a route, but a route could also consist of only a single trip.

Example

In this example 2 pickup and 1 delivery orders were inserted in OptiFlow. The result is a route for a resource combination where the 2 pickups are executed first. They are then delivered at the depot, where also the pickup needs to happen for the following delivery order.
The first trip starts at the first pickup since the resource combination stops being empty from that moment. When both deliveries for the pickup orders are executed at the depot, the resource combination is empty and the first trip ends.
The second trip starts at the same depot, since the pickup for the upcoming delivery order causes the resource combination to no longer be empty. When the delivery is executed, the second trip ends.
From there on the resource combination can proceed to the end location of the route.

Stop

A stop at a specific location where one or more pickups or deliveries need to be made, taking into account the timings for a stop.