A GENERALIZED TRAVELING SALESMAN PROBLEM APPROACH TO THE DIRECTED CLUSTERED RURAL POSTMAN PROBLEM

In this paper, we examine the directed Clustered Rural Postman Problem (CRPP). The CRPP is a restricted version of the Rural Postman Problem in which each connected component of arcs to be serviced has to be co mpletely serviced before servicing another component. We present an en umerative solution approach for the CRPP based on transforming the CRP P into a version of a Generalized Traveling Salesman Problem. This wor k also represents a simple yet elegant unifying view for some classes of are and node routing problems.