A Two-Stage Resolution Search-Based Heuristic for the Team Orienteering Problem

In this paper we propose to solve the Team Orienteering Problem (TOP) by using a two-stage resolution search-based heuristic. An instance of the TOP can be viewed as a variant of the well-known vehicle routing problem where the aim is to collect maximum scores by some or all members belonging to the team at the control points. Moreover, each of the provided path is limited and restricted by its predefined time window. The proposed approach combines two complementary stages. A first stage which is applied in order to construct a starting path that is considered as an elite path. A second stage is used for building a feasible solution for the TOP. Computational results, based on some benchmark instances of the literature, show that the proposed approach is competitive and it is able to provide new solutions within reasonable runtimes.