Service Times

Characteristic

Short description

The PTV xTour service plans tours consisting of stops at different sites. Those stops and included pickup, delivery and visit tasks to be carried out at the corresponding location have a certain service time. This service time is influenced by different parameters. The following technical concept explains in which cases these parameters are useful and how they influence the service time of stops and tasks.

Use

The following technical concept explains in which cases these parameters are useful and how they influence the service time of stops and tasks.

Detailed Consideration

Overall service time of a stop

For every visit of a site along a tour, there is a stop with a certain service time. During the service time, tasks are carried out. The total service time of a stop is the sum

Once-per-stop service time

The once-per-stop service time is determined by the following fields:

These service times arise every time the vehicle stops at a certain site. Hence the once-per-stop service time is the sum of all of those service times.

There is one exception: Every customer site has an optional field customer id. Should the vehicle stop at a sequence of customer sites for which the same customer id is set, the once-per-stop service time is only considered at the first stop of the sequence. So the once-per-stop service time may even be a once-per-customer service time. The start of service at each stop in a sequence of stops at customer sites with the same customer id must still lie within one of the opening intervals. Please note that the same customer id may only be set for two different customer sites if they only differ in the location id and the opening intervals.

Task service time

A task can be a pickup task, a delivery task, or simply a visit task. Depending on the type, the service time for a task is one of the following:

Each task is different: Large or heavy items may require a longer time to load and unload. Orders that require extensive load securing will also take longer to execute. The time needed to execute an order may also depend on the equipment of the site that is associated with the order. For a visit order the service time is the time needed to perform the activity at the customer. All these parameters are contained within the task service time.

The service time for a task may be adjusted. There are three fields that control this adjustment:

The service time for a task is multiplied by the factor of the vehicle unless the site where the task is carried out demands to ignore the vehicle’s factor.

Additionally, in case of a depot task, it is multiplied by the factor of the depot site where the task is carried out.

Example

There is a depot and a customer. Two differently sized packages should be transported from the depot to the customer and one package should be transported from the customer back to the depot.

The task-dependent service times were estimated by the client as follows:

Vehicle and Sites have the following properties:

In general the service time for a stop is calculated as follows:

Sum of

  • Site.serviceTimePerStop
  • DepotSite.additionalServiceTimePerPickupStop (if stop is at pickup depot site)
  • DepotSite.additionalServiceTimePerDeliveryStop (if stop is at delivery depot site)
  • Vehicle.serviceTimePerStop
  • Product of
    • Vehicle.serviceTimeFactorForOrders (if Site.ignoreVehicleDependentServiceTimeFactorForOrders is false)
    • DepotSite.serviceTimeFactorForOrders (if stop is at depot site)
    • Sum of
      • TransportOrder.serviceTimeForDelivery (of all delivery task service times at stop)
      • VisitOrder.serviceTime (of all visit task service times at stop)
      • TransportOrder.serviceTimeForPickup (of all pickup service tasks at stop)

Total service time for pickups at depot = 0 + 30 + 0 + 3 + 0.8 * 1.5 * (2 + 8) = 45

Total service time for deliveries and pickup at customer = 7 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 0.8 * (5 + 7 + 18) = 34

Total service time for delivery at depot = 0 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 10 * 0.8 * 1.5 = 15

For a more detailed example and explanation on how to integrate the service time parameters into your personal use case, see Using Different Service Time Settings.

Good to know

Service at "Split Stops"

A stop is always part of exactly one trip. If a trip begins on the same site as the previous trip ended, there are two stops, one for each trip. Hence, there is a once-per-stop service time for each of the two stops, even though the vehicle may not have left and re-entered the site.