Heuristic Algorithm for the Traveling-salesman Problem

The classical traveling-salesman problem is to determine a tour that will minimize the total distance or cost involved in visiting several cities and returning to the starting point. This paper describes a new heuristic algorithm that has been programmed for a digital computer and that obtains optimal or near-optimal solutions to the problem. The author's general approach was derived from an existing algorithm developed by Karg and Thompson in 1964. Computational results for five multi-city tours are presented and the algorithm is shown to be competitive with other existing heuristic techniques.