Arc Routing Problems
with Richard Eglese
Arc Routing Problems (ARPs) are a special kind of vehicle routing problem in which the vehicles are constrained to traverse certain arcs, rather than visit certain nodes as in the standard Vehicle Routing Problem. Typically, the arcs represent streets which require some kind of treatment or service. Examples include the Chinese Postman Problem, the Rural Postman Problem and the Capacitated Arc Routing Problem.
As well as being interesting optimisation problems in their own right, ARPs also have many practical applications such as postal delivery, waste collection, meter reading, winter gritting and cattle feed distribution.
Research is needed to improve both heuristic and exact approaches to solving these problems. See the page on Vehicle Routing Problem for an overview of solution methods currently used by the group.
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