Exploring driving directions

You can now explore the driving directions displayed in a text pane occupying the upper portion of the map.

Steps:

1. Tap one of the numbered lines in the Driving Directions pane to zoom to the corresponding turn on the route.

2. Tap the driving information entry to zoom to and highlight a segment connecting two turns.

   Explore the route you have calculated and note that you have generated a simple, point-to-point route. Although you have made four stops for this exercise, only two are normally required. The order of stops you entered has been preserved. However, this might not be the most efficient route connecting your stops. You will now find an optimized route.

3. Tap the arrow below the Create Route button.
4. Tap Create Optimized Route.

   To find the fastest route connecting all the stops, the route will be recalculated using a variation of a Traveling Salesman Problem algorithm. The Traveling Salesman Problem, or TSP for short, solves a scenario in which, given a finite number of places along with the cost of travel between each pair of them, one has to find the cheapest way of visiting all the places. In a typical TSP solution the route is calculated such that it begins and ends at the same point. For large instances of this problem, no solutions are known that solve the problem in a reasonable time. Therefore, approximation algorithms, such as local search, are used.

   Note:

   In your route the departure and arrival stops remain unchanged; however, the intermediate stops are rearranged to provide you with a faster route.