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Panoramic view on the North Campus © Jürgen Huhn​/​TU Dortmund
INSTITUTE FOR TRANSPORT LOGISTICS OPTIMIZES TRIP ROUND GERMANY

Marathon Journey Takes Electric Car to TU Dortmund University

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Four men in front of an electric car © TU Dortmund
Marathon driver Rainer Zietlow (3rd from the left) meets at TU Dortmund University with the logistics specialists for his tour: Nicolas Kämmerling, Professor Uwe Clausen and Dr. Sven Langkau (from left to right).
The record trip of an electric car over more than 20,000 kilometers around the whole of Germany brought it on Tuesday, 10 November, to TU Dortmund University – which is not surprising: The route for this marathon journey was planned by a team led by Professor Uwe Clausen, Managing Director of the university’s Institute for Transport Logistics (ITL).

By Tuesday, Rainer Zietlow and his co-pilot Dominic Brüner had already completed 17,000 kilometers around the country. There were a number of rules for their route from the south to the north of Germany: They were only allowed to call at each place once. In addition, they had to stop at all fast charging stations with a capacity of at least 60 kilowatts (kW) and also visit all VW dealers in the country.

Traveling Salesperson Problem

“With a few modifications, this task equates to the classic problem of the traveling salesperson,” says Professor Clausen. And in the world of logistics it is indeed known as the “Traveling Salesperson Problem” or TSP. “The challenge of visiting each place just once, along with the other criteria, sounds astonishingly easy. The traveling salesperson problem, however, is one of the most difficult from the standpoint of complexity theory,” explains Nicolas Kämmerling, Team Leader for Mathematical Optimization. Creating a suitable mathematical optimization model thus called for the ITL team’s expertise. “Everything has worked perfectly so far,” says Zietlow, the driver. “Professor Clausen’s team has once again found a great solution.”

Once across the country

The electric car’s journey started on 28 September at Germany’s southernmost hotel and ended will end on its northernmost parking lot west of List on the island of Sylt. One of the highlights of the tour was a stop at an SOS Children’s Village, which Rainer Zietlow has supported since 2005. He already has a lot of experience in driving long distances and with world records on all the world’s continents. Incidentally, one such trip already took him round the whole of Germany back in 2009 – on that occasion with a car that ran on gas rather than petrol. That route was also planned by a team led by Professor Clausen.

The tour online

 

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