Exploring Variants of 2-Opt and 3-Opt for the General Routing Problem

Luc Muyldermans (), Patrick Beullens (), Dirk Cattrysse () and Dirk Van Oudheusden ()
Additional contact information
Luc Muyldermans: Nottingham University Business School, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, United Kingdom
Patrick Beullens: Department of Mathematics, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3HE, United Kingdom
Dirk Cattrysse: Center for Industrial Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 300A, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium
Dirk Van Oudheusden: Center for Industrial Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 300A, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium

Operations Research, 2005, vol. 53, issue 6, 982-995

Abstract: The general routing problem (GRP) is the problem of finding a minimum length tour, visiting a number of specified vertices and edges in an undirected graph. In this paper, we describe how the well-known 2-opt and 3-opt local search procedures for node routing problems can be adapted to solve arc and general routing problems successfully. Two forms of the 2-opt and 3-opt approaches are applied to the GRP. The first version is similar to the conventional approach for the traveling salesman problem; the second version includes a dynamic programming procedure and explores a larger neighborhood at the expense of higher running times. Extensive computational tests, including ones on larger instances than previously reported in the arc routing literature, are performed with variants of both algorithms. In combination with the guided local search metaheuristic and the mechanisms of marking and neighbor lists, the procedures systematically detect optimal or high-quality solutions within limited computation time.

Keywords: transportation; vehicle routing: local search; 2-opt; networks/graphs; traveling salesman: arc routing; general routing problem; rural postman problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.1040.0205 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:oropre:v:53:y:2005:i:6:p:982-995

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Operations Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().