An improved penalty heuristic for the generalized assignment and the TSP
This study examines several significant improvements to the penalty method suggested by Martello and Toth (1981) for the assignment problem. It is shown that these improvements reduce the possible effect of worst case scenarios. Based on the principles of the improved assignment, a heuristic procedure is proposed for solving the TSP. Again, it is shown that the effect of worst case scenario is greatly reduced by using this heuristic when compared to the Nearest Neighbor approach.
Keywords: Penalty Assignment TSP Traveling Salesman Myopic Heuristic
