CART User Manual ‐ Preparing the data

CART User Manual

Preparing the Data

The tool requires 2 primary datasets to be provided. These are the Customer Data file and the Extra Points file.

Customer Data

The customer data file must have the following information:

• Unique Identifiers
• Locations in Lat/Lng
• Demand → Some column indicating how much must be picked up at that location.
• Zone information → indicating if a set of customers are located in a specific collection zone.

Additionally it may contain the following optional information:

• Closed flag, to indicate that a given customer should not be considered because they are no longer part of the service but they are still in the file. The tool will ignore these customers if closed is set to 1, and include if closed is set to 0.
• Additional Info: This is a single column that can take any name but must contain all additional information about the customer that you would like to include in the output maps and manual edits sheet. If you have multiple columns of information you would like to include you can use excel to combine that information into a single column.
• Time Windows: Periods of time where the vehicle is allowed to stop at that location (format shown in the github repo under the local_data directory)

(Add example of customer file and header file here, but you can also refer to the github repo under local_data)

Extra Points

The Extra Points file contains information on depots/facilities where vehicles may start or end from, or where they may drop off loads.

It must contain the following information:

• Lat/Long information for the locations -
• ID field - this can be any unique identifier (unique to this file)
• Name - this is the name of the location and the primary piece of information that you will use when running this tool. You may say “Start_Point: Collection center A” in the config file and that will reference the name in this file.
• Type - this is a contextual field that the tool does not use but maybe be helpful for understanding what each point is

(Add example of extra points, also visible in the Github repo under local_data)

Important Note:

• Server API:
  • You will need files called customer_data.xlsx, extra_points.csv, and config.json (you can find sample files in github repo under the local_data directory)
  • Pass them to the provide_files endpoints:
    curl -X "POST" "server_url:5001/provide_files" -H "accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" -F "files=@local_data/config.json" -F "files=@local_data/customer_data.xlsx"
• In GoogleDrive
  • the customer_data file should be named Customer_Data, with a worksheet/tab called “Customer Data”
  • The extra points file should be named extra_points, with a worksheet/tab called “extra_points”
• In AWS
  • You should create a new folder for any scenario you are running, inside that folder you should have the customer and extra points files
  • The customer_data file should be named customer_data.xlsx
  • The extra points file should be named extra_points.csv