Route management software?

I'm working on planning out my upcoming trip to Vegas. I think I have things planned out on a day-by-day basis. Now I'm working on the intra-day planning.

Does anybody know of a good, preferably free, route planning tool? I have addresses for my destinations, but I'm looking for a tool to help me optimize my routing. Minimizing my travel time is the primary concern, but travel distance is somewhat of a factor as well. Is there anything out there to help with this type of planning?

Did you want something that allows you to enter addresses, then plan the best route FOR YOU? I can't help you there.

However, if you simply want to enter addresses (or pick points on a map) and look at the route, and swap the sequence as you see fit, then I'd use Google Maps.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Did you want something that allows you to enter addresses, then plan the best route FOR YOU? I can't help you there.

However, if you simply want to enter addresses (or pick points on a map) and look at the route, and swap the sequence as you see fit, then I'd use Google Maps.

Mapquest will optimize for either distance or time, but you stll need to give it a starting and ending point.

I thought Google Maps would allow you to do waypoints and optimize. No?

As far as I know, Google Maps does not solve the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). You have to give it a specific order to visit all the waypoints.

If you know the math behind the TSP, you can download a demo of an optimization interface (like GAMS or OPL), code in the LP, use Google Maps to collect the point to point distances, and send it to the NEOS servers for solving. That's all free, but takes some work.

GoogleMaps will optimize for you? I didn't know that.

I just tested it. I entered a bunch of points, and looked for an optimize button and couldn't find one....

Note that in some cases, it's best to hit the 'walking' button. Even if you're driving, doing the walking route can be better because GoogleMaps doesn't consider things like u-turns in the parking lot at each destination. My test with 6 locations at 9.9 miles by car turned itno 5.4 miles by foot. It could be even shorter if Google allowed Jay-Walking.

Found it:

http://gebweb.net/optimap/

someone built a TSP solver for google maps. have fun.

Sounds good, but since TSP is NP-complete I wonder how long it takes to blow up. Didn't the OP say he wanted to visit dozens of casinos in one day?

Edit: I'd bet it doesn't actually solve it, and with heuristics it's just an easy semi-optimal solution. Besides, in Vegas you're going to get stuck in traffic anywhere near the strip so "optimal" is a bit elusive anyway.

Quote:

I'm working on planning out my upcoming trip to Vegas. I think I have things planned out on a day-by-day basis. Now I'm working on the intra-day planning.

Does anybody know of a good, preferably free, route planning tool? I have addresses for my destinations, but I'm looking for a tool to help me optimize my routing. Minimizing my travel time is the primary concern, but travel distance is somewhat of a factor as well. Is there anything out there to help with this type of planning?

It's Vegas! Untuck your shirt, take off your watch, and ditch the day planner.

And FYI, "The Travelling Salesman Problem" (TSP) is an NP-hard problem in combinatorial optimization studied in operations research and theoretical computer science. Given a list of cities and their pairwise distances, the task is to find a shortest possible tour that visits each city exactly once.

The problem was first formulated as a mathematical problem in 1930 and is one of the most intensively studied problems in optimization. It is used as a benchmark for many optimization methods. Even though the problem is computationally difficult, a large number of heuristics and exact methods are known, so that some instances with tens of thousands of cities can be solved.

The TSP has several applications even in its purest formulation, such as planning, logistics, and the manufacture of microchips. Slightly modified, it appears as a sub-problem in many areas, such as DNA sequencing. In these applications, the concept city represents, for example, customers, soldering points, or DNA fragments, and the concept distance represents travelling times or cost, or a similarity measure between DNA fragments. In many applications, additional constraints such as limited resources or time windows make the problem considerably harder.

In the theory of computational complexity, the decision version of the TSP belongs to the class of NP-complete problems. Thus, it is assumed that there is no efficient algorithm for solving TSPs. In other words, it is likely that the worst case running time for any algorithm for the TSP increases exponentially with the number of cities, so most instances with only one hundred cities will take upwards of 10148 CPU years to solve exactly. -Source Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem

In short, don't use the computer to plan your trip. Use your heart. :)

Also, check this out..http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html

Good Luck! :)


-Keyser

The source code for the TSP solver says it picks different algorithms depending on the number of locations. I am sure it gives an optimal solution for a reasonable number of points, but uses a heuristic for larger numbers. Since it maxes out at 24, I could only guess what rules it uses to choose the algorithm.

NP-complete doesn't need to be scary when you are dealing with a small number of points. It's just complexity talk for "Don't ask me to solve a big problem".

Wow, I had no idea how powerful Google Maps and Mapquest were. They'll work for sure. After playing around this evening, I'm second guessing some of my daily breakdowns. I think I might be enough of a nerd that I'll look for the 5 day optimized routing.

Given that I will be joining slotclubs and visiting players club booths at most venues, what would be the timeframe that constitutes a useable day? 10am-midnight?

You don't need to join slot clubs at most properties you visit. On the strip, two clubs cover over a dozen different properties (Harrah's Total Rewards and MGM Player's Club, soon to be "MLife"). Once you pick up a Stations Boarding Pass and a Boyd B Connected card, you've covered a significant percentage of clubs off-strip too. So if you want to *really* optimize, call the players clubs ahead of time and verify their desk hours, then hit the ones during those hours where you won't already have a card. E.g. visit one Stations property during desk hours, but save the rest for afterwards so you can use the daytime for other club signups.

Quote: MathExtremist

You don't need to join slot clubs at most properties you visit. On the strip, two clubs cover over a dozen different properties (Harrah's Total Rewards and MGM Player's Club, soon to be "MLife"). Once you pick up a Stations Boarding Pass and a Boyd B Connected card, you've covered a significant percentage of clubs off-strip too. So if you want to *really* optimize, call the players clubs ahead of time and verify their desk hours, then hit the ones during those hours where you won't already have a card. E.g. visit one Stations property during desk hours, but save the rest for afterwards so you can use the daytime for other club signups.

I already have a Boyd card (from Blue Chips in IN) and a Total Rewards card (from Horseshoe Southern Indiana). I will need to pick up an MGM card and a Station card. That shouldn't be too bad.

How does it work with the American Casino Guide and Las Vegas Advisor free play coupons? I think I need the players club desk to be open to load those credits onto my account. I think what I might do is try to start every day at 10am at a locals casino and end every day on the strip at casinos with no coupon promos. That way, I'm starting late enough that the players club will be open at the locals joint and ending somewhere where it won't matter if the players club has already closed.

Almost every slot club is open pretty long hours. I don't remember having a problem at any one of them, except Mandalay and Luxor which closed at midnight and Hard Rock which opened at 8 A.M. (I got there early). You shouldn't have any problem getting players cards unless you are there at really odd hours. I would say 8AM-12AM would be suitable window. Plenty of time.