Install vroom with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• vroom

Project history

The GitHub repository was created in September 2015, and the upstream changelog shows the project beginning with v0.1 as a TSP-oriented solver that used OSRM for matrix computation and emitted JSON solutions. Early releases added TSPLIB input, asymmetric local-search improvements, OSRM v5 support, a new JSON API, and a switch to the BSD 2-clause license.

VROOM grew from a route-ordering tool into a broader vehicle-routing solver across the 2018-2021 releases. Version 1.3.0 added VRP with time windows, v1.4.0 added OpenRouteService as a routing engine, v1.6.0 added pickup-and-delivery shipments, v1.10.0 added heterogeneous routing profiles and Valhalla support, and v1.11.0 added custom cost matrices and user-defined starting solutions. Later releases continued to expose more business constraints such as fixed costs, cost per hour, max travel time, max distance, and per-vehicle task times.

The current upstream README says the open-source project is maintained by Verso, while the public project remains usable by organizations that want to run route optimization on their own infrastructure and integrate their own map and routing data.

Adoption history

VROOM's adoption niche is logistics and geospatial routing rather than general-purpose optimization. A 2019 HeiGIT/openrouteservice article described collaboration with the VROOM project to add an ORS routing backend, letting VROOM optimize fleets using shortest paths computed by openrouteservice on OpenStreetMap data.

The project is commonly used with routing engines rather than as a standalone map service. Its README lists OSRM, OpenRouteService, and Valhalla as supported routing engines, and the wiki documents OSRM as the default backend while allowing user-supplied cost matrices.

How it is used

Users model vehicles, jobs, shipments, time windows, skills, capacities, breaks, start/end locations, and related constraints as JSON, then run the `vroom` CLI against standard input or an input file. VROOM returns optimized routes as JSON and can include route geometry and distance when connected to a routing backend.

In package-nerd terms, VROOM is the small, fast native executable sitting between map-routing backends and last-mile planning software. It is especially useful when an application already has location data and needs a deterministic CLI/API-style optimizer it can host itself.

Why package nerds care

The formula matters because it packages a specialized native VRP optimizer as a normal CLI tool. For developers building routing stacks, that means a local, scriptable solver can be paired with self-hosted OSRM, ORS, Valhalla, or a custom matrix without adopting a hosted optimization service.

Timeline

• 2015: GitHub repository created; v0.1 starts with TSP solving, OSRM-based matrix computation, and JSON output.
• 2018: v1.3.0 adds VRP with time windows and large CVRP/TSP speedups.
• 2019: v1.4.0 adds OpenRouteService support; HeiGIT announces ORS backend collaboration.
• 2021: v1.10.0 adds Valhalla support and heterogeneous routing profiles; v1.11.0 adds custom cost matrices.
• 2024: v1.14.0 switches the codebase to C++20 and adds vehicle cost-per-kilometer and max-distance constraints.
• 2026: v1.15.0 adds per-vehicle-type task times and task-time cost modeling.

Related projects

• VROOM is usually discussed alongside OSRM, OpenRouteService, Valhalla, OpenStreetMap, pyvroom, and VROOM's Docker/API wrappers.

Sources

• GitHub repository API metadata: https://api.github.com/repos/VROOM-Project/vroom
• HeiGIT openrouteservice collaboration article: https://heigit.org/solve-routing-optimization-with-vroom-openrouteservice-2/
• VROOM GitHub README: https://github.com/VROOM-Project/vroom
• VROOM changelog: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/VROOM-Project/vroom/master/CHANGELOG.md
• VROOM usage wiki: https://github.com/VROOM-Project/vroom/wiki/Usage