IBM ILOG Dispatcher User's Manual > The Basics > IBM ILOG Dispatcher Concepts > Model > Decision Variables

From a modeling perspective, each visit v is associated with a next-variable, representing the visit immediately after v (accessible through the member function IloVisit::getNextVar) and a performed-variable which is set to IloTrue if the v is performed and IloFalse if it is not (accessible through the member function IloVisit::performed). These variables are the decision variables of a routing problem: a solution to a routing problem is uniquely described by the values they take.

Each time a visit is extracted it is associated with a unique integer identifier (accessible through the member function IloDispatcher::getIndex). The next-variables are extracted to instances of IlcIntVar which represent indices of visits.

To simplify programming with Dispatcher, the next-variables have been complemented by redundant variables. The prev-variables, accessible through the member function IloVisit::getPrevVar, are the constrained variables representing the visit immediately before a given visit. They are also extracted to instances of IlcIntVar representing indices of visits.

Another constrained variable associated with each visit is the vehicle variable (accessible through IloVisit::getVehicleVar) which holds the vehicle performing the visit. As with visits, once extracted, vehicles are associated with a unique integer identifier and vehicle-variables are extracted to instances of IlcIntVar which correspond to these indices.

Vehicles are also associated with a number of variables and objects. The start-visit and the end-visit (accessible through IloVehicle::getFirstVisit and IloVehicle::getLastVisit, respectively) represent the starting and ending points of the vehicle's route.