Programming Throwdown Route Planning with Parker Woodward
Ever wondered how route planning apps, well, plan routes? In this episode, we navigate through this fascinating topic, a field as data-driven and systemic as it is magical and compelling.
Joining us is Parker Woodward, Route Expert and Marketing Director for Route4Me. We discuss how route planning works, the intricacies behind it, and how services like Route4Me perform complex balancing acts between machine learning and user-generated feedback.
This episode touches on the following key topics and ideas:
00:00:23 Introducing Parker
00:01:54 Becoming a Route Expert
00:04:22 Getting started through smaller startups
00:12:41 Leveraging technology for the greater good
00:14:36 The magic of route planning
00:23:30 Homomorphism and satisfiability
00:31:18 Geocoding
00:33:06 User-generated feedback
00:37:08 Importance of statistics knowledge
00:39:34 The degree of automation in route planning
00:42:54 Inverse decision-making
00:48:47 Operations Research
00:53:42 Dwarf Fortress
00:56:40 US vs European routes
00:57:51 What Route4Me does
01:05:38 Working at Route4Me
01:10:26 Route4Me API
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Tools
- Route4Me https://route4me.com
- Route4Me API https://route4me.io
- Waze https://www.waze.com
- Google Maps https://www.google.com/maps
- OpenStreetMap https://www.openstreetmap.org
- MapQuest https://www.mapquest.com
- DeepMind https://deepmind.com
Books
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Games
- Dwarf Fortress http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Links
- Waymo https://waymo.com/
- Upwork https://www.upwork.com/
Reach out to Parker via email: parker@routeforme.com
Catch Parker on LinkedIn
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