I'm trying to come up with an effective assignment algorithm to allocate nodes to a nearest outlet, where each node should be have a time slot checked against the already allocated nodes for similarity (or even sequentiality to allow effective journey planning throughout a day).
I've currently looked at something called SPA - Simple Parallel Assigning which works out the cost of assigning each node to its nearest and next nearest outlet, and then assigns the one with the greatest cost saving.
The way the similarity would be calculated is
TimeDiff = difference between start/end or end/start time slots between existing node and 'to be assigned' node.
Time = Distance between existing node and 'to be assigned' node
The cost is then:
e^(-TimeDiff + Time) summed for each Node already assigned.
This value is compared to the second nearest outlet to determine the overall cost saving in assigning it.
Unfortunately the algorithm seems fairly slow, and seems to assign nodes in a very unusual way and I'm wondering if anyone can suggest a better way of doing something like this is they know about assignment problems?
Thanks...