An analysis of edge assembly crossover for the traveling salesman problem

The GA with edge assembly crossover (EAX) has shown a good performance for traveling salesman problems (TSPs). The paper examines why EAX brings good performance to GAs. Many crossovers for TSPs have been proposed so far. We first examine advantages of EAX by comparing it with other crossovers, and confirm some requirements to design a good crossover. Next, we examine what advantages the EAX has compared with other representative operators for TSPs.