The A Priori Traveling Repairman Problem

Abstract

The field of a priori optimization is an interesting subfield of stochastic combinatorial optimization that is well suited for routing problems. In this setting, there is a probability distribution over active sets, vertices that have to be visited. For a fixed tour, the solution on an active set is obtained by restricting the solution on the active set. In the well-studied a priori traveling salesman problem, the goal is to find a tour that minimizes the expected length. In the a priori traveling repairman problem (TRP), the goal is to find a tour that minimizes the expected sum of latencies. In this paper, we study the uniform model, where a vertex is in the active set with probability p independently of the other vertices, and give the first constant-factor approximation for a priori TRP.