Improve the 3-flip neighborhood local search by random flat move for the set covering problem

Abstract

The 3-flip neighborhood local search (3FNLS) is an excellent heuristic algorithm for the set covering problem which has dominating performance on the most challenging crew scheduling instances from Italy railways. We introduce a method to further improve the effectiveness of 3FNLS by incorporating random flat move to its search process. Empirical studies show that this can obviously improve the solution qualities of 3FNLS on the benchmark instances. Moreover, it updates two best known solutions within reasonable time.