scholarly journals Phase Transitions and Backbones of the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 471-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Zhang

In recent years, there has been much interest in phase transitions of combinatorial problems. Phase transitions have been successfully used to analyze combinatorial optimization problems, characterize their typical-case features and locate the hardest problem instances. In this paper, we study phase transitions of the asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem (ATSP), an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem that has many real-world applications. Using random instances of up to 1,500 cities in which intercity distances are uniformly distributed, we empirically show that many properties of the problem, including the optimal tour cost and backbone size, experience sharp transitions as the precision of intercity distances increases across a critical value. Our experimental results on the costs of the ATSP tours and assignment problem agree with the theoretical result that the asymptotic cost of assignment problem is pi ^2 /6 the number of cities goes to infinity. In addition, we show that the average computational cost of the well-known branch-and-bound subtour elimination algorithm for the problem also exhibits a thrashing behavior, transitioning from easy to difficult as the distance precision increases. These results answer positively an open question regarding the existence of phase transitions in the ATSP, and provide guidance on how difficult ATSP problem instances should be generated.

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Laporte

The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) are two of the most popular problems in the field of combinatorial optimization. Due to the study of these two problems, there has been a significant growth in families of exact and heuristic algorithms being used today. The purpose of this paper is to show how their study has fostered developments of the most popular algorithms now applied to the solution of combinatorial optimization problems. These include exact algorithms, classical heuristics and metaheuristics.


Author(s):  
Ольга Борисовна Маций

The solution to the problem of improving the management of the transport process depends not only on the level of modernization of vehicles and the degree of use of modern information technologies, but also on the choice of routes that reduce the cost of transporting goods and passengers. Actual working conditions of vehicles in road networks put forward a number of tasks for optimizing closed routes, which are based on the classic routing problem (VRP - Vehicle Routing Problem).VRP is one of the generalizations of the hard-to-solve traveling salesman problem. The traveling salesman task is NP-complete. It refers to the main tasks of combinatorial optimization and, forming a continuously replenished set of applications and generalizations, remains an urgent research topic. An exact solution to the traveling salesman problem can be found only by reducing the enumeration of the type of branches and boundaries, which are not always applicable in operational planning by vehicle traffic. Therefore, the development of new and improvement of currently known methods for solving routing problems, reducible to the traveling salesman problem, and their software implementation is both a theoretical and practically important problem.The article considers the class of routing problems reducible to the traveling salesman problem. It is shown that optimization tasks for closed routes (routing problems), which are an important part of transport logistics, occupy key positions in the management of the processes of moving goods and passengers with the support of modern information technologies. An obvious feature that combines the considered list of routing problems (the symmetric traveling salesman problem, the problem of packing in containers, the school bus problem) is that they are formulated as generalizations or variants of the NP-complete traveling salesman problem with restrictions that narrow the scope of feasible solutions. The strongest restrictions become insufficient solvability conditions, stimulating interest in the study of combinatorial optimization problems associated with the traveling salesman problem.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
Aleksandr N. Maksimenko

In this paper, we consider the notion of a direct type algorithm introduced by V. A. Bondarenko in 1983. A direct type algorithm is a linear decision tree with some special properties. the concept of a direct type algorithm is determined using the graph of solutions of a combinatorial optimization problem. ‘e vertices of this graph are all feasible solutions of a problem. Two solutions are called adjacent if there are input data for which these and only these solutions are optimal. A key feature of direct type algorithms is that their complexity is bounded from below by the clique number of the solutions graph. In 2015-2018, there were five papers published, the main results of which are estimates of the clique numbers of polyhedron graphs associated with various combinatorial optimization problems. the main motivation in these works is the thesis that the class of direct type algorithms is wide and includes many classical combinatorial algorithms, including the branch and bound algorithm for the traveling salesman problem, proposed by J. D. C. Little, K. G. Murty, D. W. Sweeney, C. Karel in 1963. We show that this algorithm is not a direct type algorithm. Earlier, in 2014, the author of this paper showed that the Hungarian algorithm for the assignment problem is not a direct type algorithm. ‘us, the class of direct type algorithms is not so wide as previously assumed.


Author(s):  
K Ganesh ◽  
R. Dhanlakshmi ◽  
A. Tangavelu ◽  
P Parthiban

Problems of combinatorial optimization are characterized by their well-structured problem definition as well as by their huge number of action alternatives in practical application areas of reasonable size. Especially in areas like routing, task allocation, or scheduling, such kinds of problems often occur. Artificial Intelligence Heuristics, otherwise called Meta-heuristic techniques that mimic natural processes, can produce ‘good’ results in reasonable short runs for this class of optimization problems. Even though those bionic heuristics are much more flexible regarding modifications in the problem description when being compared to classical problem specific heuristics, they are often superior in their results. Those bionic heuristics have been developed following the principles of natural processes. In that sense, Genetic Algorithms (GAs) try to imitate the biological evolution of a species in order to achieve an almost optimal state whereas Simulated Annealing (SA) was initially inspired by the laws of thermodynamics in order to cool down a certain matter to its lowest energetic state. This paper develops a set of metaheuristics (GA, SA and Hybrid GA-SA) to solve a variant of combinatorial optimization problem called Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem. The set of met heuristics is compared with clustering based heuristic and the results are encouraging.


2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (04) ◽  
pp. 539-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHIAMING WANG ◽  
JEFFREY D. HYMAN ◽  
ALLON PERCUS ◽  
RUSSEL CAFLISCH

We explore the potential of parallel tempering as a combinatorial optimization method, applying it to the traveling salesman problem. We compare simulation results of parallel tempering with a benchmark implementation of simulated annealing, and study how different choices of parameters affect the relative performance of the two methods. We find that a straightforward implementation of parallel tempering can outperform simulated annealing in several crucial respects. When parameters are chosen appropriately, both methods yield close approximation to the actual minimum distance for an instance with 200 nodes. However, parallel tempering yields more consistently accurate results when a series of independent simulations are performed. Our results suggest that parallel tempering might offer a simple but powerful alternative to simulated annealing for combinatorial optimization problems.


Axioms ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Ramin Bazrafshan ◽  
Sarfaraz Hashemkhani Hashemkhani Zolfani ◽  
S. Mohammad J. Mirzapour Al-e-hashem

There are many sub-tour elimination constraint (SEC) formulations for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). Among the different methods found in articles, usually three apply more than others. This study examines the Danzig–Fulkerson–Johnson (DFJ), Miller–Tucker–Zemlin (MTZ), and Gavish–Graves (GG) formulations to select the best asymmetric traveling salesman problem (ATSP) formulation. The study introduces five criteria as the number of constraints, number of variables, type of variables, time of solving, and differences between the optimum and the relaxed value for comparing these constraints. The reason for selecting these criteria is that they have the most significant impact on the mathematical problem-solving complexity. A new and well-known multiple-criteria decision making (MCDM) method, the simultaneous evaluation of the criteria and alternatives (SECA) method was applied to analyze these criteria. To use the SECA method for ranking the alternatives and extracting information about the criteria from constraints needs computational computing. In this research, we use CPLEX 12.8 software to compute the criteria value and LINGO 11 software to solve the SECA method. Finally, we conclude that the Gavish–Graves (GG) formulation is the best. The new web-based software was used for testing the results.


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