Ant Colony Optimization for Time-Dependent Travelling Salesman Problem

Abstract

In this paper, the time-dependent travelling salesman problem (TDTSP) is reviewed and the heuristic based on ant colony optimization for solving the TDTSP is proposed. The TDTSP is an extension of the classical travelling salesman problem in which the edge costs depend on the order in which the edges are visited. This extension is even more computationally complex than the original problem and therefore a heuristic must be used in order to get a solution close to the optimal one for larger-scale problems. We combine the ant colony optimization algorithm with a modified local search and apply the heuristic to a simplified version of the flying tourist problem.