Case Studies:

Bin Packing &

The Traveling Salesman Problem

David S. Johnson
AT&T Labs Research

2010 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property.

Outline
Lecture 1: Today
Introduction to Bin Packing (Problem 1)
Introduction to TSP (Problem 2)

Lecture 2: Today -- TSP

Lecture 3: Friday --TSP
Lecture 4: Friday - Bin Packing

Applications
Packing commercials into station breaks
Packing files onto floppy disks (CDs, DVDs, etc.)
Packing MP3 songs onto CDs
Packing IP packets into frames, SONET time
slots, etc.
Packing telemetry data into fixed size packets

Standard Drawback: Bin Packing is NP-complete

NP-Hardness
Means that optimal packings cannot be constructed in
worst-case polynomial time unless P = NP.
In which case, all other NP-hard problems can also be
solved in polynomial time:
Satisfiability
Clique
Graph coloring
Etc.

See M.R. Garey & D.S.Johnson, Computers and

Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NPCompleteness, W.H.Freeman, 1979.

Standard Approach to Coping

with NP-Hardness:
Approximation Algorithms
Run quickly (polynomial-time for theory,
low-order polynomial time for practice)
Obtain solutions that are guaranteed to be
close to optimal

First Fit (FF):

Decreasing,
Put eachBest
item Fit
in the
Decreasing
first bin with
(FFD,BFD):
enough space
Start by reordering the items by non-increasing size.
Best Fit (BF): Put each item in the bin that will hold it with
the least space left over

Worst-Case Bounds
Theorem [Ullman, 1971][Johnson et al.,1974].
For all lists L,

BF(L), FF(L) (17/10)OPT(L) + 3.

Theorem [Johnson, 1973]. For all lists L,

BFD(L), FFD(L) (11/9)OPT(L) + 4.
(Note 1: 11/9 = 1.222222)
(Note 2: These bounds are asymptotically tight.)

Lower Bounds: FF and BF

OPT: N bins

FF, BF:

N/2 bins

N bins

= 1.5 OPT

Lower Bounds: FF and BF

OPT: N bins

FF, BF:

N/6 bins + N/2 bins + N bins

= 5/3 OPT

Lower Bounds: FF and BF

1/7 +

1/43 + ,

1/1806 + ,

etc.

1/3 +

FF, BF = N(1 + 1/2 + 1/6 + 1/42 + 1/1805 + )

1/2 +

OPT: N bins

(1.691..) OPT

Jeff Ullmans Idea

1/6 +

1/3 +

1/2 +

FF, BF = N (1 + 1/2 + 1/5) = (17/10) OPT

Key modification:
Replace some 1/3 +s & 1/6+s
with 1/3-i & 1/6+i, and some
with 1/3+i & 1/6-i,
with i increasing from bin to bin.

OPT: N bins

(Actually yields FF, BF (17/10)OPT - 2

See References for details.)

Lower Bounds: FFD and BFD

1/4-2

1/4-2

1/4+

1/4-2

1/4-2

1/4+2

1/4+

1/4+2

1/4+

1/4+2

6n bins

3n bins

OPT = 9n

1/4+

6n bins

2n bins
FFD, BFD = 11n

1/4-2

1/4-2

1/4-2

3n bins

Asymptotic Worst-Case
Ratios
RN(A) = max{A(I)/OPT(I): OPT(I) = N}
R(A) = max{RN(A): N > 0}
absolute worst-case ratio

R(A) = limsupNRN(A)
asymptotic worst-case ratio

Theorem: R(FF) = R(BF) = 17/10.

Theorem: R(FFD) = R(BFD) = 11/9.

Why Asymptotics?
Partition Problem: Given a set A of numbers
ai, can they be partitioned into two subsets
with the sums (aAa)/2?
This problem is NP-hard, and is equivalent to
the special case of bin packing in which we ask
if OPT = 2.
Hence, assuming P NP, no polynomial-time
bin packing algorithm can have R(A) < 3/2.

Implementing Best Fit

Put the unfilled bins in a binary search tree,
ordered by the size of their unused space
(choosing a data structure that implements
inserts and deletes in time O(logN)).
Bin
Index

Bin with smaller gap

gap

Gap
Size

Bin with larger

Implementing Best Fit

When an item x arrives, the initial current node is the
root of the tree.
While the item x is not yet packed,
If x fits in the current nodes gap,

If x fits in the gap of the nodes left child, let that node become the
current node.

Otherwise,
delete the current node.
pack x in the current nodes bin.
reinsert that bin into the tree with its new gap.

Otherwise,
If the current node has a right child, let that become the current
node.
Otherwise, pack x in a new bin, and add that to the tree.

Implementing First Fit

New tree data structure:
The bins of the packing are the leaves, in their original order.
Each node contains the maximum gap in bins under it.
1.00
.99

1.00

.56

.41

.11

.99

.56

.41

.56

.37

.82

.82

.03

.77

.99

.50

.26

.99

.26

.77

.17

.77

.44

1.00

1.00

Online Algorithms (+ Problem 1)

We have no control over the order in which items
arrive.
Each time an item arrives, we must assign it to a bin
before knowing anything about what comes later.
Examples: FF and BF
Simplest example: Next Fit (NF)
Start with an empty bin
If the next item to be packed does not fit in the current bin,
put it in a new bin, which now becomes the current bin.

Problem 1: Prove R(NF) = 2.

Best Possible Online Algorithms

Theorem [van Vliet, 1996]. For any online bin packing
algorithm A, R(A) 1.54.
Theorem [Richey, 1991]. There exist polynomial-time
online algorithms A with R(A) 1.59.
Drawback: Improving the worst-case behavior of
online algorithms tends to guarantee that their
average-case behavior will not be much better.
FF and BF are much better on average than they are
in the worst case.

Best Possible Offline Algorithm?

Theorem [Karmarkar & Karp, 1982]. There is a polynomialtime (offline) bin packing algorithm KK that guarantees
KK(L) OPT(L) + log2(OPT(L)) .
Corollary. R(KK) = 1.
Drawback: Whereas FFD and BFD can be implemented to
run in time O(NlogN), the best bound we have on the
running time of KK is O(N8log3N).
Still open: Is there a polynomial-time bin packing
algorithm A that guarantees A(L) OPT(L) + c for any
fixed constant c?

To Be Continued
Next time: Average-Case Behavior
For now: On to the TSP!

The Traveling Salesman Problem

Given:
Set of cities {c1,c2,,cN }.
For each pair of cities {ci,cj}, a distance d(ci,cj).

Find:
Permutation : {1,2,..., N} {1,2,..., N} that minimizes
N 1

d(c
i1

(i)

, c(i1) ) d(c(N) , c(1) )

N = 10

N = 10

Other Types of Instances

X-ray crystallography
Cities: orientations of a crystal
Distances: time for motors to rotate the crystal
from one orientation to the other

High-definition video compression

Cities: binary vectors of length 64 identifying the
summands for a particular function
Distances: Hamming distance (the number of terms
that need to be added/subtracted to get the next
sum)

No-Wait Flowshop Scheduling

Cities: Length-4 vectors <c1,c2,c3,c4> of
integer task lengths for a given job that
consists of tasks that require 4
processors that must be used in order,
where the task on processor i+1 must
start as soon as the task on processor i is
done).
Distances: d(c,c) = Increase in the finish
time of the 4th processor if c is run
immediately after c.
Note: Not necessarily symmetric: may
have d(c,c) d(c,c).

How Hard?
NP-Hard for all the above applications

and many more

[Karp, 1972]

[Papadimitriou & Steiglitz, 1976]

[Garey, Graham, & Johnson, 1976]
[Papadimitriou & Kanellakis, 1978]

How Hard?
Number of possible tours:
N! = 123(N-1)N = (2NlogN)
10! = 3,628,200
20! ~ 2.431018 (2.43 quadrillion)

Dynamic Programming Solution:

O(N22N) = o(2NlogN)

Dynamic Programming Algorithm

For each subset C of the cities containing c1, and
each city cC, let f(C,c) = Length of shortest path
that is a permutation of C, starting at c1 and ending
at c.
f({c1}, c1) = 0
For xC, f(C{x},x) = MincCf(C,c) + d(c,x).
Optimal tour length = MincCf(C,c) + d(c, c1).
Running time: ~(N-1)2N-1 items to be computed, at time
N for each = O(N22N)

How Hard?
Number of possible tours:
N! = 123(N-1)N = (2NlogN)
10! = 3,628,200
20! ~ 2.431018 (2.43 quadrillion)

Dynamic Programming Solution:

O(N22N)
102210 = 102,400
202220 = 419,430,400

N = 10

N = 100

N = 1000

N = 10000

Planar Euclidean Application #1

Cities:
Holes to be drilled in printed circuit boards

N = 2392

Planar Euclidean Application #2

Cities:
Wires to be cut in a Laser Logic
programmable circuit

N = 7397

N = 33,810

N = 85,900

Standard Approach to Coping

with NP-Hardness:
Approximation Algorithms
Run quickly (polynomial-time for theory,
low-order polynomial time for practice)
Obtain solutions that are guaranteed to be
close to optimal
For the latter and the TSP, we need the
triangle inequality to hold:
d(a,c) d(a,b) + d(b,c)

Danger when No -Inequality

Theorem [Karp, 1972]: Given a graph G = (V,E), it is NP-

hard to determine whether G contains a Hamiltonian circuit

(collections of edges that make up a tour).

Given a graph, construct a TSP instance in which

d(c,c) =

1 if {c,c} E
N2N if {c,c} E

If Hamiltonian circuit exists, OPT = N, if not, OPT > N2N.

A polynomial-time approximation algorithm with that
guaranteed a tour of length no more than 2N OPT would imply
P = NP.

Nearest Neighbor (NN):

1.Start with some city.
2.Repeatedly go next to the nearest unvisited neighbor of
the last city added.
3.When all cities have been added, go from the last back to
the first.

A
d(A,D) d(A,E) + d(E,D)

B
E
d(B,C) d(B,E) + d(E,C)

D
C
Note: By -inequality, an optimal tour need not contain any crossed edges.
d(A,D) + d(B,C) (d(A,E) + d(E,D)) + (d(B,E) + d(E,C))
= (d(A,E) + d(E,C)) + (d(B,E) + d(E,D))
= d(A,C) + d(B,D)
For the Euclidean metric, the inequalities are strict
(unless all relevant cities are co-linear)

 Theorem

[Rosenkrantz, Stearns, & Lewis, 1977]:

There exists a constant c, such that if instance

I obeys the triangle inequality, then we have
NN(I) clog(N)Opt(I).
There exists a constant c, such that for all N >
3, there are N-city instances I obeying the
triangle inequality for which we have NN(I) >
clog(N)Opt(I).
For any algorithm A, let
RN(A) = min{A(I)/OPT(I): I is an N-city instance}
Then RN(NN) = (log(N)) (worst-case ratio)

Lower Bound Examples

F1:

1
1+

(NN starts at left, ends in middle)

1

Li/2 + 1

Fi+1:

Fi

1+

Li/2 + 1

1+

Fi

Let Li be the number of edges encountered if we travel stepby-step from the leftmost vertex in Fi to the rightmost.

L1 = 2,

Li+1 = 2Li + 2

Set the distance from the rightmost vertex of Fk to the

leftmost to 1+, and set all non-specified distances to
their -inequality minimum.
OPT(Fk)/(1+) N = Lk + 1 = (2Lk-1 + 1) + 1
= (2(2Lk-2 + 1) + 1) + 1 = (2(2(2Lk-3 + 1) + 1) + 1) + 1
k 1

k 1
i
2
L

2
= 2k + 2k 1 < 2k+1
1
=
i 0

Log(N) < k+1

k 1

NN(Fk) Lk + 1 + 2
i1

k -1-i

k 1

Li > 2k + 2k -1-i2i = 2k + (k-1)2k-1

i1

> k2k-1 > (k/4) OPT(Fk)/(1+) = (log(N) OPT(Fk)

Upper Bound Proof (Sketch)

Observation 1: For symmetric instances with the inequality, d(c,c) OPT(I)/2 for all pairs of cities {c,c}.

P1

Optimal Tour

P2

-inequality d(c,c) length(P1) and d(c,c) length(P2)

2d(c,c) OPT(I)

 Observation 2: For cities c, let L(c) be the length of edge

added when c was the last city in the tour.
For all pairs {c,c}, d(c,c) min(L(c),L(c)).
Proof: Suppose without loss of generality that c is the first of
c,c to occur in the NN tour. When c was the last city, the next
city chosen, say c*, satisfied d(c,c*) c(c,c) for all unvisited
cities c. Since c was as yet unvisited, this implies c(c,c)
d(c,c*) = L(c).
Overall Proof Idea: We will partition C into O(logN) disjoint
sets Ci such that cCi L(c) OPT(I), implying that
NN(I) = cC L(c) = O(logN)OPT(I).

 Set X0 = C, i = 0 and repeat while |Xi| > 3.

Let Ti be the set of edges in an optimal tour for X i -- note that |Ti| =
|Xi|. By the -inequality, the total length of these edges is at most
OPT(I).
Let Ti be the set of edges in Ti with length greater than 2OPT(I)/|
Ti| -- note that |Ti| < |Ti|/2.
For each edge e = {c,c} in Ti - Ti, let f(e) be a city c {c,c} such
that L(c) d(c,c).
Set Ci = {f(e): e Ti - Ti} -- note that
cCi L(c) eTi length(e) OPT(I).
|Ci| |Ti - Ti|/2 |Ti|/4 = |Xi|/4 .
Set Xi+1 = Xi Ci -- note that |Xi+1| (3/4)|Xi|.

 Given that |Xi+1| (3/4)|Xi|, i 0, this process can only

continue while (3/4)iN > 3, i.e., by the time log(3/4)i +
logN > log(3), or roughly while log(N)-log(3) >
-log(3/4)i = log(4/3)i.
Hence the process halts at iteration i*, where
log(N) log(3)
i*
O(logN)
log(4/3)
At this point there are 3 or fewer cities in Xi*+1. Put
each of them in a separate set Ci*+j, 1 j |Xi*+1|, for
which, by Observation 1, we will have L(c) OPT(I)/2.

Greedy (Multi-Fragment) (GR):

1. Sort the edges, shortest first, and treat them in that
order. Start with an empty graph.
2. While the current graph is not a TSP tour, attempt to add
the next shortest edge. If it yields a vertex degree
exceeding 2 or a tour of length less than N, delete.

 Theorem [Ong & Moore, 1984]: For all instances I

obeying the -Inequality, GR(I) = O(logN)OPT(I).

Theorem [Frieze, 1979]: There are N-city

instances IN for arbitrarily large N that obey the
-Inequality and have GR[IN ] = (logN/loglogN).

Nearest Insertion (NI):

1.Start with 2-city tour consisting of the some
city and its nearest neighbor.
2.Repeatedly insert the non-tour city that is
closest to a tour city (in the location that yields
the smallest increase in tour length).

 Theorem [Rosenkrantz, Stearns, & Lewis, 1977]:

If instance I obeys the triangle
inequality, then R(NI) = 2.
Key Ideas of Upper Bound Proof:
The minimum spanning tree (MST) for I is no longer
than the optimal tour, since deleting an edge from
the tour yields a spanning tree.
The length of the NI tour is at most twice the
length of an MST.
A

d(B,C) d(B,A) + d(A,C) by -inequality, so

C

d(A,C) + d(B,C) d(B,A) 2d(A,C)

(A,C) would be the next edge added by
Prims minimum spanning tree algorithm

Lower Bound Examples

2

NI(I) = 2N-2
OPT(I) = N+1

2
2

Another Approach
Observation 1: Any connected graph in which
every vertex has even degree contains an
Euler Tour a cycle that traverses each
edge exactly once, which can be found in
linear time.

[Problem 2: Prove this!]

Observation 2: If the -inequality holds, then

traversing an Euler tour but skipping past
previously-visited vertices yields a Traveling
Salesman tour of no greater length.

Obtaining the Initial Graph

Double MST algorithm (DMST):
Combine two copies of an MST.
Theorem [Folklore]: DMST(I) 2Opt(I).

Christofides algorithm (CH):

Combine one copy of an MST with a minimum-length
matching on its odd-degree vertices (there must
be an even number of them since the total sum of
degrees for any graph is even).
Theorem [Christofides, 1976]: CH(I) 1.5Opt(I).

Optimal Tour on Odd-Degree Vertices

(No longer than overall Optimal Tour)

Matching M1 + Matching M2 = Optimal Tour

Hence Optimal Matching min(M1,M2) OPT(I)/2

Can we do better?
No polynomial-time algorithm is known that has a
worst-case ratio less than 3/2 for arbitrary instances
satisfying the -inequality.
Assuming P NP, no polynomial-time algorithm can do
better than 220/219 = 1.004566 [Papadimitriou &
Vempala, 2006].
For Euclidean and related metrics, there exists a
polynomial-time approximation scheme (PTAS): For
each > 0, a polynomial-time algorithm with worst-case
ratio 1+. [Arora, 1998][Mitchell, 1999].

PTAS RunningTimes
[Arora, STOC 1996]:

O(N100/)

[Arora, JACM 1998]:

O(N(logN)O(1/))

[Rao & Smith, STOC 1998]:

O(2(1/)O(1)N + N log N)
If = and O(1) = 10, then 2(1/)O(1) > 21000.

Performance In Practice
Testbed: Random Euclidean Instances

(Results appear to be reasonably well-correlated

with those for our real-world instances.)

Nearest Neighbor

Greedy

Smart Shortcuts

Smart-Shortcut Christofides

Smart-Shortcut Christofides
2-Opt
3-Opt

Original Tour

Original Tour

Result of 2-Opt move

Results of 3-Opt moves

2-Opt [Johnson-McGeoch Implementation]

4.2% off optimal
10,000,000 cities in 101 seconds at 2.6 Ghz
3-Opt [Johnson-McGeoch Implementation]
2.4% off optimal
10,000,000 cities in 4.3 minutes at 2.6 Ghz
Lin-Kernighan [Johnson-McGeoch Implementation]
1.4% off optimal
10,000,000 cities in 46 minutes at 2.6 Ghz
Iterated Lin-Kernighan [J-M Implementation]
0.4% off optimal
100,000 cities in 35 minutes at 2.6 Ghz

Worst-Case Running Times

Nearest Neighbor: O(N2)
Greedy: O(N2logN)
Nearest Insertion: O(N2)
Double MST: O(N2)
Christofides: O(N3)
2-Opt: O(N2(number of improving moves))
3-Opt: O(N3(number of improving moves))

K-d trees [Bentley, 1975, 1990]

Data Elements
Array T: Permutation of Point indices
Array H: H[i] = index of tree leaf containing Point i

Tree Vertex k:

Index L in
Array T of
First Point

Index U in
Array T of
Last Point

Widest
Dimension

Median Value
in Widest
Dimension

Leaf?

Empty?

Implicit: Index of Parent = k/2

Index of Lower Child = 2k
Index of Higher Child = 2k+1

Operations
Construct kd-tree (recursively): O(NlogN)
Delete or temporarily delete points (without
rebalancing): O(1)
Find nearest neighbor to one of points:
typically O(logN)
Given point p and radius r, find all points p with d(p,p)
r (ball search):
typically O(logN + number of points returned).

Finding Nearest Neighbor to Point p

Initialize M = . Call rnn(H[p],p,M).

rnn(k,p,M):
If Vertex k is a leaf,
For each point x in vertex ks list,
If dist(p,x) < M, set M = dist(p,x) and Champion = x.

Otherwise,
Let d be vertex ks widest dimension, m be its median value for
that dimension, and pd the value of ps coordinate in dimension d.
If pd > m, let NearChild = 2k+1 and FarChild = 2k.
Otherwise, NearChild = 2k and FarChild = 2k+1.
If NearChild has not been explored, rnn(NearChild,p,M).
If |pd m| < M, rnn(FarChild,p,M).

Mark Vertex k as explored

Nearest Neighbor Algorithm in

O(NlogN)
Construct kd-Tree on cities.
Pick a starting city c(1).
While there remains an unvisited city, let the
current last city be c(i).
Use the kd-Tree to find the nearest unvisited city
to c(i).
Delete c(i) from the kd-Tree

Greedy (Lazily) in O(NlogN)

Initialization:

Construct a kd-tree on the cities. Let G = (C,). We will maintain

the property that the kd-tree contains only vertices with degree
0 or 1 in G.

For each city c, let n(c) be its nearest legal neighbor. A

neighbor is legal if adding edge {c,n(c)} to the current graph does
not create
A vertex of degree 3 or
A cycle of length less than N.

Put triples (c,n(c),dist(c,n(c))) in a priority queue, sorted in order

of increasing distance.

For each city c, define otherend(c) = c.

Greedy (Lazily) in O(NlogN)

While not yet a tour:

Extract the minimum (c,n(c),d(c,n(c)) triple from the priority queue.

If {c,n(c)} is a legal edge, add it to G, and if either c or n(c) now has

degree 2, delete it from the kd-tree.

If c has degree 2, continue.

Otherwise n(c) = otherend(c) and so completes a short cycle.

Temporarily delete otherend(c) from the kd-Tree.
Find the new nearest neighbor n(c) of c.
Add (c,n(c),dist(c,n(c)) to the priority queue.
Put otherend(c) back in the kd-Tree.

Nearest Insertion in O(NlogN)

Straightforward if we instead implement the variant in which
each new city is inserted next to its nearest neighbor in the
tour (Nearest Addition) upper bound proof still goes
through, but performance suffers.
Seemingly no way to avoid (N2) if we need to find the best
place to insert.
Essentially as good performance can be obtained using Jon
Bentleys Nearest Addition+ variant:
If c is to be inserted and x is the nearest city in the tour to c, choose
the best insertion that places x next to a city x with d(c,x) 2d(c,x).
Idea: Use ball search to find candidates for x.

2-Opt:

N(N 3) 4 the
Organizing
2

Search

Does not work!

AB
Try each
in C
turn
the current
improving
TryAall
notaround
adjacent
to A ortour
B inuntil
the an
current
tourmove is found
take first one found. If none found after all cities tried for A, halt.

(N-3 possibilities) .

C
D

A
If this is an improving move, we cannot have both
d(A,B) < d(A,C) and d(D,C) < d(D,B),
Since this would imply d(A,C) + d(D,B) > d(A,B) + d(D,C).

A
Conseqeuently, for a given choice of A and B, we only
need to consider those C with d(A,C) < d(A,B)
-- possibly a much smaller number than N.

Taking Advantage
First Idea (trading preprocessing time for later speed):
Preprocess by constructing for each city A, a sorted list of the
other cities C in increasing order by d(A,C).
Preprocessing Time = (N2logN)

Second Idea (trading quality for even more speed):

Preprocess by constructing for each city A a list of its K nearest
neighbors C in increasing order by d(A,C), and only consider those
cities as candidates for C when processing A (and store distances
to save later re-computations).
Preprocessing Time = (kNlogN) [using kd-trees]
Typically, neighbor lists with K = 20 or 40 are fine.

One More Tradeoff: Dont Look Bits

Suppose that that there was no improving move from city A the last
time we checked, and it still has the same tour neighbors as before.
Then it is unlikely that we will find an improving move this time
either.
So, dont even look for one.
Can be implemented by storing a dont-look-bit for each city A,
initially set to 0.
Set to 1 whenever the search from c for an improving move fails.
Set to 0 whenever a move is made that changes one of As neighbors in
the tour.

Rotate through values of A as before, but we now only need constant

time to process any city whose dont-look-bit equals 1.
Alternatively (and potentially faster): Store cities c with dontlook-bit[c] = 0 in a queue, and process them in queue order.

Remaining Major Bottleneck:

The Tour Representation
Standard Representation: Doubly-Linked List.

Need double-linking (both Next and Prev) in order to identify legal 2-Opt moves in constant time:
If the first deleted edge is Next[A], then the second must be Prev[C], and vice versa.

Prev Name Next

Worst-Case cost of performing a move: (N).

Prev Name Next

Prev Name Next

Can flip either half, but, empirically, even the length of

the shorter one still grows as (N0.7) [Bentley, 1992]

Tour Data Structure

Operations
Initialize -- Build initial tour representation.
Flip(a,b) -- Reverse segment from a to b.

Queries
Prev(c) -- Returns city before c in tour.
Next(c) -- Returns city after c in tour.
Between(a,b,c) Yes if and only if c is encountered
before b when traversing tour forward from a.

Why Between(a,b,c)?

3-Opt

Cant break next --

B
D

X -- Cant break prev

Depends on whether Between(A,C,D) = Yes

Why Between(a,b,c)?

3-Opt

Why Between(a,b,c)?
Doesnt work!

3-Opt

A
Only D with Between(A,C,D) = Yes are viable

Tour Data Structure

Doubly-Linked List
Initialize, Flip: O(N)
Next, Prev: O(1)
Between: O(N)
O(1) if we add an index to each city node

Array (A[i] is ith city in tour)

Initialize, Flip: O(N)
Next, Prev: O(1)
Between: O(1)

2-Level Tree
Divide tour into sqrt(N) segments, each
of length sqrt(N).
For each segment, store
A bit indicating whether that segment
should be traversed in forward or reversed
direction
Pointers to the next and previous segments
in the tour.

2-Level Tree
Parent
Prev Segment

Next Segment

Size
Seq. #

Start of Segment

End of Segment

Parent Structure
Parent

Prev

Seq. #
City

Segment Element Structure

Next

2-Level Tree
Initialize: O(N)
Flip: O(sqrt(N))
Next, Prev: O(1)
Between: O(1)
In practice, beats arrays once N > 1000

Lower Bounds

[Fredman, Johnson, McGeoch, & Ostheimer, 1995]

In the cell probe model of computation,

any data structure must take worstcase amortized time per operation of

(logN/loglogN)

Splay Tree representation

Initialize: O(NlogN)
Flip, Next, Prev, Between:
O(logN))
In practice, beats 2-Level Trees only
when N > 1,000,000

Improving on 3-Opt
K-Opt (k > 3)
Small tour improvement for major running time increase.

Lin-Kernighan

[1973]

Drastically pruned k-Opt, but for values of k up to N.

Iterated Lin-Kernighan
[Martin, Otto, & Felten, 1991], [Johnson, 1990]
Run Lin Kernighan
Perform random 3-opt move to resulting tour
Repeat above loop f(N) times (f(N) = N/10, N, 10N, ...)

For more on the TSP algorithm performance, see the website for the
DIMACS TSP Challenge:
http://www2.research.att.com/~dsj/chtsp/index.html/
Comparison: Smart-Shortcut Christofides versus 2-Opt

Tour Length

Normalized Running Time

N = 1000 Random Clustered Instance

N = 10,000 Random Clustered Instance

Estimating Running-Time
Growth Rate for 2-Opt
Microseconds/N

Microseconds/NlogN

Microseconds/N1.25