Article ID: | iaor2002968 |
Country: | Germany |
Volume: | 90 |
Issue: | 3 |
Start Page Number: | 475 |
End Page Number: | 506 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2001 |
Journal: | Mathematical Programming |
Authors: | Grtschel M., Fischetti M., Ascheuer N. |
Keywords: | programming: branch and bound, programming: integer |
Many optimization problems have several equivalent mathematical models. It is often not apparent which of these models is most suitable for practical computation, in particular, when a certain application with a specific range of instance sizes is in focus. Our paper addresses the Asymmetric Travelling Salesman Problem with time windows (ATSP-TW) from such a point of view. The real-world application we aim at is the control of a stacker crane in a warehouse. We have implemented codes based on three alternative integer programming formulations of the ATSP-TW and more than ten heuristics. Computational results for real-world instances with up to 233 nodes are reported, showing that a new model presented in a companion paper outperforms the other two models we considered – at least for our special application – and that the heuristics provide acceptable solutions.