The term "curvature factor", also known as the Wiggle Factor or "WF", is a correction factor used in logistics that is defined as the coefficient between the actual distance traveled and the distance in a straight line (the shortest) between two points.
The concept was first used by JC Cooper in 1983. It is used to estimate road distances for land transport and to calculate fuel consumption and cost, the main cost of road transport. / p>
The curvature factor depends on the characteristics of the routes of a specific territory, which is associated with infrastructures and orthographic variables. In 2016 the Spanish engineer Pablo Domínguez-Caamaño developed a statistical method to determine this factor in different territories (dedicated spatial attention to the Spanish state). The typical curvature factor of the United Kingdom, calculated by Cooper in 1982, is 1.2, whereas in Spain, according to the calculations of the Domínguez-Caamaño method, it is between 1.36 for roads in rural areas and 1.29 for high capacity roads, such as highways and highways.
wiki