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Mixed integer programming formulations for the generalized traveling salesman problem with time windows

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Abstract

The generalized traveling salesman problem with time windows (GTSPTW) is defined on a directed graph where the vertex set is partitioned into clusters. One cluster contains only the depot. Each vertex is associated with a time window, during which the visit must take place if the vertex is visited. The objective is to find a minimum cost tour starting and ending at the depot such that each cluster is visited exactly once and time constraints are respected, i.e., for each cluster, a single vertex is visited during its time window. In this paper, four mixed integer linear programming formulations for the GTSPTW are proposed and compared. They are based on different definitions of variables. All the formulations are compact, which means the number of decision variables and constraints is polynomial with respect to the size of the instance. Dominance relations between their linear relaxations are established theoretically. Computational experiments are conducted to compare the linear relaxations and branch-and-bound performances of the four formulations. The results show that two formulations are better than the other ones.

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Acknowledgements

This work is partially supported by the CSC (China Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201604490024)) and by the ELSAT 2020 project. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

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Correspondence to Yuan Yuan.

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This manuscript has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose. All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to “4OR-A Quarterly Journal of Operations Research”.

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Yuan, Y., Cattaruzza, D., Ogier, M. et al. Mixed integer programming formulations for the generalized traveling salesman problem with time windows. 4OR-Q J Oper Res 19, 571–592 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10288-020-00461-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10288-020-00461-y

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