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Arc Routing Problems

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Encyclopedia of Optimization

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Introduction

Arc routing problems or ARPs are a special kind of vehicle routing problem in which it is the edges or arcs of the network that require service, rather than the nodes. The literature on ARPs is vast, and there are hundreds of academic articles on the subject, along with two excellent textbooks [11, 15].

The reason that ARPs have attracted so much attention is that many important problems, arising in real-world applications, can be naturally modelled as ARPs. Typical application areas include postal delivery, meter reading, road sweeping, refuse collection, snow removal, salt spreading, and the planning of school bus routes.

ARPs have an interesting historical connection to the origins of graph theory. In the 18th century, the mathematician Leonhard Euler came across the problem of the “Seven Bridges of Königsberg.” Königsberg, now called Kaliningrad, was a small city in Prussia. Running through Königsberg was the Pregel River, in which there were two islands. The islands...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management Science, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Richard W. Eglese & Adam N. Letchford

Authors
  1. Richard W. Eglese
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  2. Adam N. Letchford
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Correspondence to Adam N. Letchford .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial & Systems Engin, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Panos M. Pardalos

  2. Departmentl of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Oleg A. Prokopyev

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Eglese, R.W., Letchford, A.N. (2024). Arc Routing Problems. In: Pardalos, P.M., Prokopyev, O.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Optimization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54621-2_901-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54621-2_901-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-54621-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-54621-2

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