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An Effective Heuristic Algorithm for the Traveling-Salesman Problem

Lin, S., Kernighan, B. W.·1973·Operations Research

Abstract

This paper discusses a highly effective heuristic procedure for generating optimum and near-optimum solutions for the symmetric traveling-salesman problem. The procedure is based on a general approach to heuristics that is believed to have wide applicability in combinatorial optimization problems. The procedure produces optimum solutions for all problems tested, “classical” problems appearing in the literature, as well as randomly generated test problems, up to 110 cities. Run times grow approximately as n 2; in absolute terms, a typical 100-city problem requires less than 25 seconds for one case (GE635), and about three minutes to obtain the optimum with above 95 per cent confidence.

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Metadata

Authors
Lin, S., & Kernighan, B. W.
Venue
Operations Research
Published
1973-04
Volume
21
Issue
2
Pages
498-516
ISSN
  • 0030-364X (ISSN-L)
  • 1526-5463
OpenAlex
W2042986967
Cited by
3,821
References
0
FWCI
77.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: An Effective Heuristic Algorithm for the Traveling-Salesman Problem. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1287/opre.21.2.498
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Lin, S., & Kernighan, B. W. (1973). An Effective Heuristic Algorithm for the Traveling-Salesman Problem. Operations Research. https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.21.2.498

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Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.