Exact Methods for the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem

Abstract

In the present chapter we concentrate on the exact solution methods for the Asymmetric TSP proposed in the literature after the writing of the survey of [81]. In Section 2 two specific branch-and-bound methods, based on the solution of the assignment problem as a relaxation, are presented and compared. In Section 3 a branch- and-bound method based on the computation of an additive bound is described, while in Section 4 a branch-and-cut approach is discussed. Finally, in Section 5 all these methods are computationally tested on a large set of instances, and compared with an effective branch-and-cut code for the symmetric TSP.