Time constrained maximal covering salesman problem with weighted demands and partial coverage
Author
Ozbaygin, G.
Yaman, H.
Karasan, O. E.
Date
2016Source Title
Computers and Operations Research
Print ISSN
0305-0548
Publisher
Elsevier Ltd
Volume
76
Pages
226 - 237
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
In a routing framework, it may not be viable to visit every single customer separately due to resource limitations or efficiency concerns. In such cases, utilizing the notion of coverage; i.e., satisfying the demand of multiple customers by visiting a single customer location, may be advantageous. With this motivation, we study the time constrained maximal covering salesman problem (TCMCSP) in which the aim is to find a tour visiting a subset of customers so that the amount of demand covered within a limited time is maximized. We provide flow and cut formulations and derive valid inequalities. Since the connectivity constraints and the proposed valid inequalities are exponential in the size of the problem, we devise different branch-and-cut schemes. Computational experiments performed on a set of problem instances demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed valid inequalities in terms of strengthening the linear relaxation bounds as well as speeding up the solution procedure. Moreover, the results indicate the superiority of using a branch-and-cut methodology over a flow-based formulation. Finally, we discuss the relation between the problem parameters and the structure of optimal solutions based on the results of our experiments. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd
Keywords
Branch-and-cutCovering salesman
Valid inequalities
Sales
Structural optimization
Branch and cut
Computational experiment
Connectivity constraints
Covering salesman
Covering salesman problems
Problem parameters
Resource limitations
Valid inequality
Integer programming