Emergency Fuel Delivery Planning

Product Used: Route Optimization API

Background

A regional fuel distributor is managing a situation where all their fleet tankers are currently out on planned delivery routes, supplying diesel to various construction projects. An urgent call from a major construction site alerts the dispatcher that their machinery is running critically low on fuel due to unforeseen scenarios that have caused the site's fuel consumption rate to be significantly higher than anticipated. The dispatcher must now quickly accommodate this emergency fuel request. However, simply inserting the new order into the routing system is not sufficient as the new delivery must happen as soon as possible, even if it slightly disrupts the originally optimized routes.

Problem Statements

Handle emergencies with minimum disruption

In our construction site scenario, integrating an emergency order into the current delivery schedule presents major challenges. One approach is manual dispatcher intervention to adjust routes, which often causes inefficiency and confusion because the process requires accepting the new order, deciding which routes need modification, manually updating the affected routes, and communicating these changes to the drivers.

An alternative, though equally inefficient, strategy is to generate an entirely new delivery plan that incorporates the emergency order. However, this method would involve absorbing the significant impact of switching route plans mid-journey, including re-assigning deliveries, making major route modifications, and other complications.

Complete emergency deliveries early in the route

Even when an emergency order is added to the routing plan, the optimizer may sequence it later. For instance, a driver might complete closer scheduled deliveries first, delaying the emergency order. Traditional routing systems allowing re-optimizations cannot control this sequencing, meaning emergency deliveries can still be delayed despite being on the optimized route.

Solution

NextBillion.ai's Route Optimization API supports dynamic re-optimization and sequence control of new orders enabling dispatchers to handle emergency fuel requests efficiently while maintaining overall routing efficiency.

Ensure emergency order is accepted

To ensure urgent deliveries are handled, the API allows each order to be assigned a priority score. In the construction site example, the dispatcher can assign a relatively higher priority score to the emergency fuel delivery ensuring that it is assigned.

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"priority" : 100

Control the delivery sequence

To explicitly control the sequence at which the emergency delivery occurs within a route, the dispatcher can configure the sequence_order attribute to indicate when it should be served relative to other stops.

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"sequence_order" : 1

This would ensure that the critical delivery occurs at the desired point in the route while still allowing the optimizer to efficiently arrange the remaining stops.

Re-optimize with minimal disruptions

Use the re-optimization method of Route Optimization API to accommodate the new orders along with their priority and sequence_ordersettings to generate a new route plan with minimal disruptions to the existing route plan.

Sample Route Plan, Re-optimize Request and Response

Here is a summary of an existing route plan that is already in motion and the new emergency order:

  • Total Planned Deliveries: 7
  • Total Trucks: 3
  • Deliveries Completed: 3 (Delivery-Gas Station 1, Delivery-Gas Station 2, Delivery-Gas Station 5)
  • New Emergency Delivery: Delivery-Gas Station 8
    • Priority: 100
    • Sequence Order: 1

Following is a JSON request that we built for this case and the corresponding response.

Re-Optimize API Request

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curl --location 'https://api.nextbillion.io/optimization/re_optimization?key=<your_api_key>' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data '{...}'

Re-Optimize API Response

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{
2
  "description": "Emergency Fuel Delivery Routing",
3
  "result": '{...}',
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  "status": "Ok",
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  "message": ""
6
}

From the re-optimized response we can see that the new, urgent order (Delivery-Gas Station 8) was accepted into the new route plan and inserted before a scheduled delivery (Delivery-Gas Station 6) using the vehicle (Fuel Truck 3) without causing much disruption to the existing route plan.