A new heuristic algorithm for multiple traveling salesman problem

Abstract

The Multiple Traveling Salesman Problem (mTSP) is a combinatorial optimization problem in NP-hard class. The mTSP aims to acquire the minimum cost for traveling a given set of cities by assigning each of them to a different salesman in order to create m number of tours. This paper presents a new heuristic algorithm based on the shortest path algorithm to find a solution for the mTSP. The proposed method has been programmed in C language and its performance analysis has been carried out on the library instances. The computational results show the efficiency of this method.