And How it Affects Your Business
Have you ever noticed how when you’re running errands the commute alone can eat up over half your day?!
If so, you already have some idea of the challenges behind the Traveling Salesman Problem!
TSP is an optimization problem that large corporations dedicate a ton of time and resources to solving. It involves finding the shortest and simplest route between all the destinations that a person has to visit in a specific timeframe.
What is an example of a traveling salesman problem?
Think of a stereotypical 1950s salesman selling atlases door to door. A black and white figure in a cheap suit with a bow tie. Let’s call him Fred! Every week Fred’s boss hands him a list of leads. This list includes all the people he has to visit in a given day to sell atlases to. If Fred doesn’t hit all the houses on the list and misses out on potential sales he could land himself in hot water, and maybe even get fired. But if Fred doesn’t plan his route right, he could end up driving back and forth across the city all day — wasting gas and not getting home to his wife and new baby until late at night.
That’s why it’s in Fred’s best interest to try and find the shortest possible route that still hits every house on his long list. If he plans well, he may even get back early and can spend his afternoon sipping mai tais by the pool.
The Traveling Salesman Problem is easy to explain and hard to solve. In mathematics this sort of problem is called NP-hard, because as the problem becomes larger the amount of computation needed to solve it grows exponentially.
How Does TSP Affect My Business?
You don’t have to be a salesperson to be negatively affected by TSP!
Here’s an example of how the Traveling Salesman problem affects personal trainers:
THE PROBLEM
John is a personal trainer who offers home training sessions. His clients live all over the map. Long daily commutes are costing John time and money. By using TSP to optimize John’s commute we can save John time and gas money.
THE SOLUTION
We need to create a route that is a closed circuit, so that it ends where it started. The route we draw also has to visit all of John’s clients.
Stop Wasting Your Time and Gas Money!
You could spend hours and hours every week planning the best possible route to reduce wasting time and fuel! But keep in mind that as your business grows and you bring on new clients and employees, this problem becomes infinitely harder.
You could also use Hiero AI and save yourself the headache! Hiero uses AI-powered tools to plan your route and optimize your schedule. Our advanced formula takes into consideration important factors like time, distance, and how much each client is willing to pay to create your ideal schedule — so you can earn more without having to do extra work!
By streamlining the booking process, Hiero enables trainers to focus on what they do best — inspiring and transforming lives through fitness. We take the work out of scheduling workouts, so you can get back to training!