Glossary
Hyper-heuristic
A method that chooses between other methods. Rather than settling on one way of building routes, it decides which approach to use, and when, based on what has been working.
Routing software has many different ways of building and improving a plan — these are called heuristics, meaning rules of thumb that find a good answer quickly instead of checking every possibility. No single one of them is best for every operation.
A hyper-heuristic sits a level above. Rather than settle on one method and stick with it, it decides which method to use next, and when to switch, based on how well each has been doing. The everyday comparison is a foreman who does none of the work but knows which of the crew to put on which job.
Optrak works this way in two places. While a plan is being built, it picks which method to apply next. Separately, when Optrak is set up for an operation, it works out which combination of methods suits that operation’s own past work — so a fleet doing many small urban drops ends up with a different set from one running full loads across the country.
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