A Hybrid Meta-heuristic for the Traveling Salesman Problem with Profits
N. Jozefowiez, F. Glover and M. Laguna
Journal of Mathematical Modeling and Algorithms, vol. 7, pp. 177-195 (2008)

Abstract
We introduce and test a new approach for the bi-objective routing problem known as the traveling
salesman problem with profits. This problem deals with the optimization of two conflicting objectives:
the minimization of the tour length and the maximization of the collected profits. This problem has been
studied in the form of a single objective problem, where either the two objectives have been combined or
one of the objectives has been treated as a constraint. The purpose of our study is to find solutions to this
problem using the notion of Pareto optimality, i.e. by searching for efficient solutions and constructing
an efficient frontier. We have developed an ejection chain local search and combined it with a multiobjective
evolutionary algorithm which is used to generate diversified starting solutions in the objective
space. We apply our hybrid meta-heuristic to synthetic data sets and demonstrate its effectiveness by
comparing our results with a procedure that employs one of the best single-objective approaches.

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