UPS and the TSP

UPS and the TSP

Read the linked article about UPS’s efforts to solve the TSP (they haven’t) and respond with some comments about the. Did you have an “Ah-ha” moment about your understanding of the significance of the TSP?

Do you think UPS drivers should be allowed to modify routes?

Finally, do you understand the factorial equation on the bottom of page 856 of our text and its application to the TSP? What does it tell you about the difficulty involved with solving the TSP dilemma?

The following quote was in another article I found about UPS and the TSP. It sums up the UPS’s TSP dilemma:

“Consider an average driver’s route. There are more ways to deliver such a route than there are nanoseconds that the Earth has existed.”