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From: rhh@matilda.vut.edu.au (Robert Hinterding)
Subject: Re: Help solving the traveling salesman problem.
Message-ID: <Dr0FnL.273@matilda.vut.edu.au>
Organization: Victoria University of Technology
References: <1996May2.031257.16699@news.etc.bc.ca>
Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 00:50:09 GMT
Lines: 31

chenness@cln.etc.bc.ca (CRAIG HENNESSEY) writes:


>Hello there. I was wondering if you could help me on a problem.
>It's the traveling salesman one.

>Allright, I've got 5 cities. each some distance from the other.
>I have it set up were I build two random routes. Say
>(AB)CDE and EA(DCB) - I mutate them at 2-3 and get the children
>ABEDC and EABCD - using a number to letter formula I found in a book
>I then have four routes. Interesting in it's own right, but I don't
>know which route is best. And I'm not sure how I'm supposed to find
>out which one is, making a truth table like A to B is 5 units 
>A to C is 8 units, etc. Seems to be a slow way of solving this
>problem. Any ideas?

There is a very good article in "Foundations of Genetic Algorithms 3"
which discusses representation and operator issues for the TSP problem.
The article is: Radcliff, N.J. & Surry, P.D., Fitness Variance of Formae
and Performance Prediction, pp 51-72.  This article discusses various
representations and operators and the benefits/problems of them.
Well worth reading.

Hope that helps
Robert

-- 
Robert Hinterding                       Email: rhh@matilda.vut.edu.au 
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY       Fax:   +61 3 9688 4050
P.O. Box 14428, Melb Mail Centre        Phone: +61 3 9688 4686              
AUSTRALIA 3000                          Home Page: http://www.vut.edu.au/~rhh
