An automated decision support tool for prisoner transportation in The Netherlands (demonstration)

DV & O is responsible for prisoner transportation in The Netherlands. The organization needs to solve a vehicle routing problem with time windows [2], where prisoners have to be picked up and delivered while respecting capacity and safety constraints. A daily demand of about 700 prisoner transportations yields a very complex combinatorial problem, solved by three full time planners. A new heuristic approach, developed in cooperation with Conundra, will be demonstrated. The heuristic enables computing a routing solution for the prisoner transportation problem in less than 100 seconds with a potential to a significant cost reduction.