Advances in meter reading: Heuristic solution of the close enough traveling salesman problem over a street network

Abstract

The use of automated meter reading (AMR) with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology allows utility companies to read utility meters from a distance. Therefore, a utility company does not need to visit every customer. Rather, it must get within a certain radius of the customer in order to read the customer's meter. This changes the problem for a meter reader from a traveling salesman problem (TSP) to a close enough TSP (CETSP) over a realistic street network. In this project, we teamed with RouteSmart Technologies, Inc., a leading logistics solution provider, to propose and implement several heuristic approaches that look promising for this new problem class. In particular, the solutions generated from the proposed heuristics are compared to solutions from a rural postman problem solver (where every customer must be visited) and the improvements are documented. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008.