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G-99-40

First vs. Best Improvement: An Empirical Study

and

BibTeX reference

When applying the 2-opt heuristic to the travelling salesman problem, selecting the best improvement at each iteration gives worse results on average than selecting the first improvement, if the initial solution is chosen at random. However, starting with solutions of ‘greedy’ or ‘nearest neighbor’ constructive heuristics, the best improvement is better and faster on average. Reasons for this behavior are investigated. It appears to be better to use exchanges introducing into the solution a very small edge and a fairly large one, which can easily be removed later, than two small ones which are much harder to remove.

, 23 pages

This cahier was revised in January 2004

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First vs. Best Improvement: An Empirical Study
and
Discrete Applied Mathematics, 154(5), 802–817, 2006 BibTeX reference