Introduction to the Special Issue on Machine Learning Methods and Applications in Large-Scale Route Planning Problems

In this paper, we introduce the Special Issue on Machine Learning Methods and Applications in Large-Scale Route Planning Problems, which draws its inspiration from the academic community’s positive reception of the 2021 Amazon Last Mile Routing Research Challenge. We provide a structured overview of the papers featured in this special issue, and briefly discuss other noteworthy contributions to the research challenge. Further, we point the reader to a number of peer-reviewed publications outside of this special issue that directly or indirectly emerged from the research challenge. We conclude by highlighting a number of important priorities for future research into applications of machine learning to real-world route planning problems.