Optimal map routing with Google Maps

Question

Is there a way using the Google Maps API to get back an \"optimized\" route given a set of waypoints (in other words, a \"good-enough\" solution to the traveling salesman proble

Answer 1

Google has a ready solution for Travel Salesman Problem. It is OR-Tools (Google's Operations Research tools) that you can find here: https://developers.google.com/optimization/routing/tsp

What you need to do basically is 2 things:

• Get the distances between each two points using Google Maps API: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distance-matrix/start

• Then you will feed the distances in an array to the OR-Tools and it will find a very-good solution for you (For certain instances with millions of nodes, solutions have been found guaranteed to be within 1% of an optimal tour).

You can also note that:

In addition to finding solutions to the classical Traveling Salesman Problem, OR-Tools also provides methods for more general types of TSPs, including the following:

• Asymmetric cost problems — The traditional TSP is symmetric: the distance from point A to point B equals the distance from point B to point A. However, the cost of shipping items from point A to point B might not equal the cost of shipping them from point B to point A. OR-Tools can also handle problems that have asymmetric costs.

• Prize-collecting TSPs, where benefits accrue from visiting nodes

• TSP with time windows

Additional links:

• OR-tools at Github: https://github.com/google/or-tools
• Get Started: https://developers.google.com/optimization/introduction/get_started