One of the simplest, but still NP-hard, routing problems is the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). In the TSP, one is given a set of cities and a way of measuring the distance between cities. One has to find the shortest tour that visits all cities exactly once and returns back to the starting city. In state-of-the-art algorithms, they all assume that a complete graph is given as an input. However, for very large graphs, generating all edges in a complete graph, which corresponds to finding shortest paths for all city pairs, could be time-consuming. This is definitely a major obstacle for some real-life applications, especially when the tour needs to be generated in real-time. The objective, in this thesis, is to find a near-optimal TSP tour with a reduced set of edges in the complete graph. In particular, the following problems are investigated: which subset of edges can be produced in a shorter time comparing to the time for generating the complete graph? Is there a subset of edges in the complete graph that results in a better near-optimal tour than other sets? With a non-complete graph, which improvement algorithms work better? In this thesis, we study six algorithms to generate subsets of edges in a complete graph. To evaluate the proposed algorithms, extensive experiments are conducted with the well-known TSP data in a TSP library. In these experiments, we evaluate these algorithms in terms of tour quality, time and scalability.

One of the simplest, but still NP-hard, routing problems is the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). In the TSP, one is given a set of cities and a way of measuring the distance between cities. One has to find the shortest tour that visits all cities exactly once and returns back to the starting city. In state-of-the-art algorithms, they all assume that a complete graph is given as an input. However, for very large graphs, generating all edges in a complete graph, which corresponds to finding shortest paths for all city pairs, could be time-consuming. This is definitely a major obstacle for some real-life applications, especially when the tour needs to be generated in real-time. The objective, in this thesis, is to find a near-optimal TSP tour with a reduced set of edges in the complete graph. In particular, the following problems are investigated: which subset of edges can be produced in a shorter time comparing to the time for generating the complete graph? Is there a subset of edges in the complete graph that results in a better near-optimal tour than other sets? With a non-complete graph, which improvement algorithms work better? In this thesis, we study six algorithms to generate subsets of edges in a complete graph. To evaluate the proposed algorithms, extensive experiments are conducted with the well-known TSP data in a TSP library. In these experiments, we evaluate these algorithms in terms of tour quality, time and scalability.

In this thesis we use greedy randomize adaptive search procedure (GRASP) to solve the traveling salesman problem (TSP). Starting with nearest neighbor method to construct the initial TSP tour, we apply the 2-opt and the path-relinking method for the initial tour improvement. To increase 2-opt search speed, fixed-radius near neighbor search and don0t − look bit techniques are introduced. For the same reason a new efficient data structure, the reverse array, is proposed to represent the TSP tour. Computational results show that GRASP gives fairly good solutions in a short time.

L'étude expérimentale d'algorithmes est un sujet crucial dans la conception de nouveaux algorithmes, puisque le contexte d'évaluation influence inévitablement la mesure de la qualité des algorithmes. Le sujet particulier qui nous intéresse dans l'étude expérimentale est la pertinence des instances choisies pour servir de base de test à l'expérimentation. Nous formalisons ce critère par la notion de "difficulté d'instance" qui dépend des performances pratiques de méthodes de résolution. Le coeur de la thèse porte sur un outil pour évaluer empiriquement la difficulté d'instance. L'approche proposée présente une méthode de benchmarking d'instances sur des jeux de test d'algorithmes. Nous illustrons cette méthode expérimentale pour évaluer des classes d'instances à travers plusieurs exemples d'applications sur le problème du voyageur de commerce. Nous présentons ensuite une approche pour générer des instances difficiles. Elle repose sur des opérations qui modifient les instances, mais qui permettent de retrouver facilement une solution optimale, d'une instance à l'autre. Nous étudions théoriquement et expérimentalement son impact sur les performances de méthodes de résolution. / The empirical study of algorithms is a crucial topic in the design of new algorithms because the context of evaluation inevitably influences the measure of the quality of algorithms. In this topic, we particularly focus on the relevance of instances forming testbeds. We formalize this criterion with the notion of 'instance hardness' that depends on practical performance of some resolution methods. The aim of the thesis is to introduce a tool to evaluate instance hardness. The approach uses benchmarking of instances against a testbed of algorithms. We illustrate our experimental methodology to evaluate instance classes through several applications to the traveling salesman problem. We also suggest possibilities to generate hard instances. They rely on operations that modify instances but that allow to easily find the optimal solution of one instance from the other. We theoretically and empirically study their impact on the performance of some resolution methods.

Le problème d’approvisionnement conjoint (JDP) proposé est un problème de planification des tournées de livraisons sur un horizon de temps décomposé en périodes élémentaires, l’horizon de temps étant la période commune de livraison de tous les produits,. La donnée de ces paramètres permet d’obtenir une formulation linéaire du problème, avec des variables de décision binaires. Le modèle intègre aussi des contraintes de satisfaction de la demande à partir des stocks et des quantités livrées, des contraintes sur les capacités de stockage et de transport.Afin de résoudre aussi le problème de choix des tournées de livraison, il est nécessaire d'introduire dans le modèle des contraintes et des variables liées aux sites visités au cours de chaque tour. Il est proposé de résoudre le problème en deux étapes. La première étape est le calcul hors ligne du coût minimal de la tournée associé à chaque sous-ensemble de sites. On peut observer que pour tout sous-ensemble donné de sites, le cycle hamiltonien optimal reliant ces sites à l'entrepôt peut être calculé à l'avance par un algorithme du problème du voyageur de commerce (TSP). Le but ici n'est pas d'analyser pleinement le TSP, mais plutôt d'intégrer sa solution dans la formulation de JRP. .Dans la deuxième étape, des variables binaires sont associées à chaque tour et à chaque période pour déterminer le sous-ensemble de sites choisi à chaque période et son coût fixe associé. / The proposed joint delivery problem (JDP) is a delivery tour planning problem on a time horizon decomposed into elementary periods or rounds, the time horizon being the common delivery period for all products. The data of these parameters provides a linear formulation of the problem, with binary decision variables. The model also incorporates the constraints of meeting demand from stock and the quantities supplied, storage and transport capacity constraints.In order to also solve the problem of choice of delivery rounds, it is necessary to introduce in the model several constraints and variables related to the sites visited during each round. It is proposed to solve the problem in two steps. The first step is the calculation of the minimum off-line cost of the tour associated with each subset of sites. One can observe that for any given subset of sites, the optimal Hamiltonian cycle linking those sites to the warehouse can be calculated in advance by a traveling salesman problem algorithm (TSP). The goal here is not to fully analyze the TSP, but rather to integrate its solution in the formulation of the JRP. In the second stage, binary variables are associated with each subset and each period to determine the selected subset of sites in each period and its associated fixed cost.