An extension of the relaxation algorithm for solving a special case of capacitated arc routing problems

In this paper, we propose an exact method for solving a special integer program associated with the classical capacitated arc routing problems (CARPs) called split demand arc routing problems (SDARP). This method is developed in the context of monotropic programming theory and bases a promising foundation for developing specialized algorithms in order to solve general integer programming problems. In particular, the proposed algorithm generalizes the relaxation algorithm developed by Tseng and Bertsekas (1987) for solving linear programming problems. This method can also be viewed as an alternative for the subgradient method for solving Lagrangian relaxed problems. Computational experiments show its high potential in terms of efficiency and goodness of solutions on standard test problems.