The PTV xTour and the PTV xRoute service are able to respect provisions on working hours when planning tours or calculating routes. If this feature is used, the PTV service considers these provisions by scheduling break and rest periods and by respecting limits on driving times and travel times.
The following technical concept explains how to make the PTV xTour/xRoute service regard the working hours. It describes which regulations are supported to which degree, and how to interpret the response.
Working hours are tour restrictions that regulate the driving or working times of the drivers. There may be not just a single regulation but many regulations that the driver has to abide by. For instance, one regulation may deal with working hours for all workers, and another regulation may deal with working hours for drivers of heavy vehiclesThe term vehicle describes what is being routed or planned for. Vehicles are used in route calculation, distance matrix calculation and effectively also in tour planning. In route calculation, vehicle properties like overall size, weight and speed are in focus. In tour planning, it is vehicle properties like capacity and availability. Commonly a vehicle is motorized, like a truck - including its trailer or a car. However also a bike or even a pedestrian are included in this definition. only. Since drivers of heavy vehiclesThe term vehicle describes what is being routed or planned for. Vehicles are used in route calculation, distance matrix calculation and effectively also in tour planning. In route calculation, vehicle properties like overall size, weight and speed are in focus. In tour planning, it is vehicle properties like capacity and availability. Commonly a vehicle is motorized, like a truck - including its trailer or a car. However also a bike or even a pedestrian are included in this definition. are also workers, both regulations apply to them. We call a regulation that only affects drivers of heavy vehicles a driving time regulation because its primary goal is to limit the driving time of the driver. We call a directive that affects all mobile workers working time directive because its primary goal is to limit the working time of workers.
Drivers of heavy vehicles must comply with different regulations depending on their operating area:
Those driving time regulations are detailled in the Driving Time Regulation technical concept page. In the following these regulations are called drivers' working hours.
In addition to this regulation, mobile workers should comply with the working time directive. For now, only working time directive EU_2002_15_EC is supported. Working time directive are detailled in the Working Time Directive technical concept page. In the following this directive is called mobile workers directive.
The combination of both regulations is not supported.
The drivers' working hours can only be used with non multiple travel times distance matrices and the mobile workers directive can only be used with multiple travel times distance matrices!
Only use a multiple travel times distance matrix if needed. The results differ significantly to the ones calculated with a normal distance matrix as the optimization problem gets much more difficult to solve!
Working hours provisions impose limits on driving times and travel times and enforce breaks after a certain driving time and/or after a certain travel time. But there is not just one type of break. The longer the time horizon of a tour is, the more provisions must be respected and the more different types of break need to be distinguished.
If the time horizon of every tour is supposed to be one day, choose SingleDayWorkingHours. This will limit the maximum driving time per driver and the maximum travel time per driver appropriately in order to respect the maximum allowed travel and driving time between daily rests. Your planning horizon may be longer than a day, and tours may be planned on different days, but no individual tour will span more than a day.
If you choose SingleDayWorkingHours, no daily rests will be enforced, however violations will be reported if the maximum driving time per driver, or the maximum travel time per driver, is exceeded. If provided, the WorkLogbookSummary will be considered.
Only use a multiple travel times distance matrix if needed. The results differ significantly to the ones calculated with a normal distance matrix as the optimization problem gets much more difficult to solve!
In addition, lunch breaks will be scheduled optimally, either en route between two stops or at a site. A break may be scheduled before it becomes due if it is beneficial. This may be the case if the driver would have to wait for an opening interval to open otherwise. If the time horizon of every tour may span multiple days, choose MultiDayWorkingHours. Lunch breaks and daily rests will be scheduled if necessary. However this will not limit the maximum driving time per driver or the maximum travel time per driver. If you want your tours not to span more than 6 days for instance (see weekly rest rules of the EU regulation), please set the TourRestrictions (maximumDrivingTimePerTour and maximumTravelTimePerTour) accordingly.
Weekly rests are currently not scheduled and weekly or even bi-weekly rules are not considered.
The field dailyRestPositions offers three options to choose from:
Daily rests may be prolonged if beneficial. Just like breaks, daily rests are scheduled optimally.
For various reasons, the planner (and the driver) may not want a daily rest to be scheduled within a trip.
For xTour, BETWEEN_ALL_TRIPS and BETWEEN_TRIPS options ensure that daily rests are only scheduled between trips and at a depot.
For xRoute, these options are not relevant as the PTV xRoute module only consider a single trip.
All tours planned by the PTV xTour and the PTV xRoute services respect the daily rest positions. However, the PTV xRoute service does not support BETWEEN_ALL_TRIPS and BETWEEN_TRIPS options. But if there is a tour specified in the input plan where the drivers' working hours cannot be respected given only these positions, daily breaks are also planned at other positions and marked with a PositionViolation. Positions of breaks and daily rests in a response tour are reported in the tour events of the corresponding tour report. Breaks and daily rests are represented by tour events that have the tour event type BREAK and DAILY_REST respectively. A tour event is split up into multiple consecutive tour events if the tour event types or the violation types change during this period.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
| Technical Concept | Tours and Trips |
| Technical Concept | Driving Time Regulation |
| Technical Concept | Working Time Directive |
| Integration Sample | Planning a Tour using a Distance Matrix |