A vehicle-scheduling system for delivering school meals

This paper reports an application of vehicle-scheduling for the Inner London Education Authority. A semi-interactive, microcomputer-based system was designed and implemented to assist the scheduling of vehicles which deliver meals from kitchens to schools. The scheduling methodology used was heuristic in nature, being based in part on the well-known savings concept and also incorporating a novel approach to the problem of ‘time-window’ constraints on the collection and delivery of meals.