OPTIMAL ROUTE PLANNING OF TOURISM SPOTS IN TRIPURA, INDIA USING MULTI-TRIP VEHICLE ROUTING PROBLEM.

Optimal travel route selection in real time basis minimizes the transportation cost for the tourists and guarantees the ease of travel as well. Accordingly, this paper deals with the problem of selecting the appropriate route selection to visit the identified tourists' spots in Tripura, India using the vehicle routing problem with time windows. The different tourist spots in the study area are identified from the Tourism Department of the Government of Tripura. This study considers only two cities as the gateway to reach to Tripura. After which, based on Bing map portal, geographic information for all the selected tourist spots is mapped; and one to one distance matrix is prepared considering the identified tourist spots and the two-gateway point of Tripura. The result so derived is compared and contrasted with the traditional route followed by the travel operators of Tripura; and found significant differences in terms of cost of transportation and time spent to visit the different tourist spots in Tripura. Finally, this paper concluded that selection of optimal route for transport network of tourism spots in Tripura, India using multi-trip vehicle routing problem can ensure the ease of travel and satisfaction for the tourists visiting in Tripura, India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]