Delivery Route Planner (TSP solver)

Given a list of addresses in Toronto, this planner can generate the most efficient (shortest) route with visting the same location twice, outputting as excel file.

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What is TSP?

"The travelling salesman problem (TSP) asks the following question: "Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each city and returns to the origin city?" It is an NP-hardproblem in combinatorial optimization." -- by Wikipedia

Input

• A list is imported by external file sources.
• A random list of addresses in Toronto with the home address as the starting and ending points:

places = [
    "375 Bamburgh Cir, Scarborough, ON",
    "10231 Yonge St, Richmond Hill, ON",
    "1383 16th Ave, Richmond Hill, ON",
    "11 Disera Dr, Thornhill, ON",
    "280 West Beaver Creek Rd, Richmond Hill, ON",
    "3760 Hwy 7, Unionville, ON",
    "300 John St, Thornhill, ON",
    "5418 Yonge St #12, North York, ON",
    "8 William Kitchen Rd A, Scarborough, ON",
    "7575 Keele St, Concord, ON",
    "5284 Hwy 7, Markham, ON",
    "4205 Keele St, North York, ON",
    "3203 Dufferin St, North York, ON",
    "3400 Yonge St, Toronto, ON",
    "51 Gerry Fitzgerald Dr, Toronto, ON"
]

TSP Solver

• By using ORtools from Google, the TSP question was solved to get the sub-optimal result by using distance matrix as the input.

Total distance: 98568 meters
Index:
 0 -> 5 -> 10 -> 4 -> 6 -> 2 -> 1 -> 3 -> 14 -> 9 -> 11 -> 12 -> 13 -> 7 -> 8 -> 0

Optimal Route Output

• A dataframe was generated in the order of delivery spots, including address, lat, lng and maps url which can be clicked on a cellphone to navigate directly:

	loc_id	address	latitude	longitude	maps_url
0	0	375 Bamburgh Cir, Scarborough, ON	43.815527	-79.322101	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1
1	5	3760 Hwy 7, Unionville, ON	43.856633	-79.332561	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=3760+Hwy+7,+Unionville,+ON&travelmode=driving
2	10	5284 Hwy 7, Markham, ON	43.868385	-79.283161	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=5284+Hwy+7,+Markham,+ON&travelmode=driving
3	4	280 West Beaver Creek Rd, Richmond Hill, ON	43.844163	-79.387734	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=280+West+Beaver+Creek+Rd,+Richmond+Hill,+ON&travelmode=driving
4	6	300 John St, Thornhill, ON	43.820492	-79.398466	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=300+John+St,+Thornhill,+ON&travelmode=driving
5	2	1383 16th Ave, Richmond Hill, ON	43.861279	-79.389934	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=1383+16th+Ave,+Richmond+Hill,+ON&travelmode=driving
6	1	10231 Yonge St, Richmond Hill, ON	43.876931	-79.438363	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=10231+Yonge+St,+Richmond+Hill,+ON&travelmode=driving
7	3	11 Disera Dr, Thornhill, ON	43.810779	-79.453600	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=11+Disera+Dr,+Thornhill,+ON&travelmode=driving
8	14	51 Gerry Fitzgerald Dr, Toronto, ON	43.784834	-79.471775	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=51+Gerry+Fitzgerald+Dr,+Toronto,+ON&travelmode=driving
9	9	7575 Keele St, Concord, ON	43.796424	-79.497674	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=7575+Keele+St,+Concord,+ON&travelmode=driving
10	11	4205 Keele St, North York, ON	43.773829	-79.492095	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=4205+Keele+St,+North+York,+ON&travelmode=driving
11	12	3203 Dufferin St, North York, ON	43.718606	-79.455361	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=3203+Dufferin+St,+North+York,+ON&travelmode=driving
12	13	3400 Yonge St, Toronto, ON	43.732653	-79.404582	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=3400+Yonge+St,+Toronto,+ON&travelmode=driving
13	7	5418 Yonge St #12, North York, ON	43.775507	-79.414727	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=5418+Yonge+St+#12,+North+York,+ON&travelmode=driving
14	8	8 William Kitchen Rd A, Scarborough, ON	43.771816	-79.280174	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=8+William+Kitchen+Rd+A,+Scarborough,+ON&travelmode=driving
15	0	375 Bamburgh Cir, Scarborough, ON	43.815527	-79.322101	https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1

Google Maps API

• A map of all places are drawn on Google Maps:

• With Google Directions API, we can plot the actual routes on the map. However, due to a large number of direction requests. The screenshot is not the final result.

Lengend for the map:
1  =  375 Bamburgh Cir, Scarborough, ON
2  =  10231 Yonge St, Richmond Hill, ON
3  =  1383 16th Ave, Richmond Hill, ON
4  =  11 Disera Dr, Thornhill, ON
5  =  280 West Beaver Creek Rd, Richmond Hill, ON
6  =  3760 Hwy 7, Unionville, ON
7  =  300 John St, Thornhill, ON
8  =  5418 Yonge St #12, North York, ON
9  =  8 William Kitchen Rd A, Scarborough, ON
10  =  7575 Keele St, Concord, ON
11  =  5284 Hwy 7, Markham, ON
12  =  4205 Keele St, North York, ON
13  =  3203 Dufferin St, North York, ON
14  =  3400 Yonge St, Toronto, ON
15  =  51 Gerry Fitzgerald Dr, Toronto, ON