Travel Time

Use this sheet to define the time required to travel between locations. Each row represents the travel time from one site to another for a specific vehicle type. Travel time is used to enforce scheduling feasibility, including vehicle availability windows, task time windows, service times, and breaks.

This sheet is required when modeling time windows, service times, or route duration limits. If your model does not include any time-based constraints, this sheet may be left blank.

The Costs and Travel Time sheets together define the travel network used by the model. At least one of these sheets must contain data in order to specify which travel legs are possible between sites. If you do not want cost or travel time to influence the objective function, you can leave the corresponding goal weight set to zero in the Goals sheet. However, one of these sheets must still define the allowable travel legs between locations.

If both sheets are populated, they must contain the same set of Origin Site → Destination Site → Vehicle Type combinations. In other words, the network structure defined in the Costs and Travel Time sheets must be consistent.

Network Structure and Connectivity

This sheet does not need to define travel times for every possible pair of sites. It only needs to include travel links where time information is known. NVIDIA cuOpt builds routes using the network defined by the links provided.

For example:

If travel time entries exist for A → B and B → C,
But no direct travel time entry exists for A → C,

cuOpt can route a vehicle from A → B → C, using B as an intermediate waypoint.

Even if a direct link A → C is defined, cuOpt may still choose the route A → B → C if the total travel time of that path is shorter. In other words, cuOpt will select the lowest-time feasible path through the network defined in this sheet.

Directional Travel

Travel links are directional. If travel is allowed in both directions between two sites (A → B and B → A), each direction must be entered on a separate row. Travel times may be different for each direction.

Origin Site

Specifies the starting location of the travel segment.

This field must match a Site Name defined in the Sites sheet exactly.

Destination Site

Specifies the ending location of the travel segment.

This field must match a Site Name defined in the Sites sheet exactly.

Vehicle Type

Specifies the vehicle type to which this travel time applies. Travel time can vary by vehicle type. If multiple vehicle types are used, each type must have its own travel time entries.

This field must match a Name defined in the Vehicle Types sheet exactly.

The travel network must have the same structure for all vehicle types. In other words, if a travel link is defined for one vehicle type, that same Origin Site → Destination Site pair must also be defined for every other vehicle type.

Defines the time required to travel from the Origin Site to the Destination Site using the specified Vehicle Type.

This value must be entered as a non-negative number (for example, 0, 8, 480, 12.5). Do not enter clock-formatted times such as 8:00 AM or 14:30. All time values in cuOpt are numeric and represent whatever unit you choose to model (minutes, hours, days, etc.). NVIDIA cuOpt does not interpret calendar time, it only uses numeric values consistently throughout the model.

The same time unit must be used consistently throughout the model.

Rules and Structure

Origin Site and Destination Site must exist in the Sites sheet.
Vehicle Type must exist in the Vehicle Types sheet.
Each Origin Site + Destination Site + Vehicle Type combination should be unique.
Travel Time values must be numeric and non-negative.