Thread: Algorithms for Traveling Purchaser Problem (TPP)

Hey guys, how you doing?

Im here to ask for you help. Im writing my bachelor paper as an implementation/review of the TPP algorithms out there. Almost every paper that I read references the Ramesh algorithm, that returns an exact solution for TPP problems, but I just can't find the algorithm, not even a high level description that I could use to implement my own version.

Does someone know how to implement it? I would be grateful with even a high level description.

There's other two approaches out there that I would be grateful to have access: the branch-and-bound algorithm of Singh and Van Oudheusden, and the branch-and-cut algorithm of Laporte. If someone know how to implement or something like that, please share with me.

(Here I would post the links to two papers, but my posts couldn't have links, don't know why...)

If you don't know what's the TPP, please see wiki page related to it before answering (I couldn't post links in this thread, don't know why...)

Guys, I know that this is an NP-HARD problem, and that it's always best to use Heuristic Algorithms instead of exact ones for larger instances, but I still want to study the exact ones.

Thanks! Any help is very welcome.