Summary
The use of radio frequency identification (RFID) allows utility companies to read meters from a distance. Thus a meter reader need not visit every customer on his route, but only get within a certain radius of each customer. In finding an optimal route — one that minimizes the distance the meter reader travels while servicing each customer on his route — this notion of only needing to be close enough changes the meter reading problem from a standard Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP) into a variant problem: Close Enough TSP (CETSP). As a project for a graduate course in network optimization various heuristics for finding near optimal CETSP solutions were developed by six groups of students. In this paper we survey the heuristics and provide results for a diverse set of sample cases.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
B. Davis, T. Retchless and N. Vakili. Radio-frequency adoption for home meter reading and vehicle routing implementation. Final project for BMGT831 R. H. Smith School of Business. University of Maryland. Spring 2005.
J. Dong, N. Yang and M. Chen. A heuristic algorithm for a TSP variant: Meter reading shortest tour problem. Final project for BMGT831 R. H. Smith School of Business. University of Maryland. Spring 2005.
T. Gala, B. Subramanian and C. Wu. Meter reading using radio frequency identification. Final Project for BMGT831 R. H. Smith School of Business. University of Maryland. Spring 2005.
T. Gonzalez. Covering a set of points in multidimensional space. Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Annual Allerton Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing, Oct 1990.
D.J. Gulczynski, J.W. Heath and C.C. Price. Close enough traveling salesman problem: Close only counts in horseshoes, and hand grenades... and meter read ing? Final Project for BMGT831 R. H. Smith School of Business. University of Maryland. Spring 2005.
G. Gutin and A.P. Punnen, The Traveling Salesman Problem and Its Variations. Springer, 2002.
S. Hamdar, A. Afshar and G. Akar. Sweeping circle heuristic. Final Project for BMGT831 R. H. Smith School of Business. University of Maryland. Spring 2005.
W. Mennell, S. Nestler, K. Panchamgam and M. Reindorp. Radio frequency identification vehicle routing problem. Final Project for BMGT831 R. H. Smith School of Business. University of Maryland. Spring 2005.
M. Solomon. Algorithms for the vehicle routing and scheduling problem with time window constraints. Operations Research, 35:254–265, 1987.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gulczynski, D.J., Heath, J.W., Price, C.C. (2006). The Close Enough Traveling Salesman Problem: A Discussion of Several Heuristics. In: Alt, F.B., Fu, M.C., Golden, B.L. (eds) Perspectives in Operations Research. Operations Research/Computer Science Interfaces Series, vol 36. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39934-8_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39934-8_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-39933-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-39934-8
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)