Part I
Here is a table of road miles (via most direct routes) and flight time among five cities.
Green cells (above diagonal): Highway miles
Blue cells (below diagonal): Flight time (hrs:mins)
A traveler wants to visit all these cities by car beginning and ending in Dallas. Find the round trip with the fewest miles. To simplify your work please use the one-letter codes instead of city names; for example A=Dallas. Use the by-hand scheme described on the module Home page.
Part II
For all of its complexity given more than four or five cities the TSP may still be unable to deal with the real world. Consider the too simple problem of three cities mentioned on the Module 3 Home page. A is an airline hub such as Atlanta; B and C are satellite cities. There are flights between A and B and also between A and C; but there are no flights between B and C other than through A. Heres the relevant information.
A salesman wants to visit all three cities on one day starting and finishing in A.
Part III
This part of the Case drives home the following point: The TSP may be easy to describe but its hard to solve for other than simple problems. But in addition to that its sometimes difficult to decide which data to use when setting up the problem.
WEEKDAY FLIGHTS FROM JFK TO LAX (One way non-refundable)
Assignment Expectations