A new local search for the bees algorithm to optimize multiple traveling salesman problem

Abstract

This paper presents a new local search operator with the Bees Algorithm (BA) to solve the Multiple Traveling Salesman Problem (MTSP), which is a kind of combinatorial optimization problem. Many algorithms and techniques were used to solve this problem; however, they could not find the optimal solutions. Some of those algorithms also have high computational costs. In this paper, the Bees Algorithm is adopted to form a robust optimizer with low execution time. The proposed method uses local search operators to achieve that. These operators are used to exploit the neighbors for local solutions. Many local search operators are described thoroughly. Two operators are used with the Bees Algorithm (BA). Then, a new local search operator called SBESTSO is proposed to improve the performance of the Algorithm. The efficiency of the Bees Algorithm with the new local search operator was evaluated using different MTSP benchmark datasets. The results obtained were compared with those of other optimization algorithms for the same datasets. The comparisons proved the robustness of the Bees Algorithm in finding optimal solutions of Multiple Traveling Salesman Problems.