Implementation analysis of efficient heuristic algorithms for the traveling salesman problem [An article from: Computers and Operations Research]

This digital document is a journal article from Computers and Operations Research, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The state-of-the-art of local search heuristics for the traveling salesman problem (TSP) is chiefly based on algorithms using the classical Lin-Kernighan (LK) procedure and the stem-and-cycle (S&C) ejection chain method. Critical aspects of implementing these algorithms efficiently and effectively rely on taking advantage of special data structures and on maintaining appropriate candidate lists to store and update potentially available moves. We report the outcomes of an extensive series of tests on problems ranging from 1000 to 1,000,000 nodes, showing that by intelligently exploiting elements of data structures and candidate lists routinely included in state-of-the-art TSP solution software, the S&C algorithm clearly outperforms all implementations of the LK procedure. Moreover, these outcomes are achieved without the use of special tuning and implementation tricks that are incorporated into the leading versions of the LK procedure to enhance their computational efficiency. y.