Multi‐parent extension of sequential constructive crossover for the travelling salesman problem

Crossover operator plays a vital role in genetic algorithms. This paper proposes the multi‐parent sequential constructive crossover (MPSCX), which generalises the two‐parent sequential constructive crossover (SCX) to a multi‐parent crossover for the travelling salesman problem (TSP). Experimental results on five TSPLIB instances show that MPSCX significantly improves SCX by up to 4.60% in average tour value with maximum 4.01% away from the exact optimal solution. Finally, the efficiency of the MPSCX is compared as against multi‐parent partially mapped crossover (MPPMX). Experimental results show that the MPSCX is better than the MPPMX.