Generalized multiple depot traveling salesmen problem—Polyhedral study and exact algorithm

•The generalized multiple depot traveling salesmen problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear program.•A polyhedral study and an exact algorithm based on the branch-and-cut framework are developed.•Performance evaluation through extensive computational experiments on bench- mark instances.

The generalized multiple depot traveling salesmen problem (GMDTSP) is a variant of the multiple depot traveling salesmen problem (MDTSP), where each salesman starts at a distinct depot, the targets are partitioned into clusters and at least one target in each cluster is visited by some salesman. The GMDTSP is an NP-hard problem as it generalizes the MDTSP and has practical applications in design of ring networks, vehicle routing, flexible manufacturing, scheduling and postal routing. We present an integer programming formulation for the GMDTSP and valid inequalities to strengthen the linear programming relaxation. Furthermore, we present a polyhedral analysis of the convex hull of feasible solutions to the GMDTSP and derive facet-defining inequalities that strengthen the linear programming relaxation of the GMDTSP. All these results are then used to develop a branch-and-cut algorithm to obtain optimal solutions to the problem. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated through extensive computational experiments on several benchmark instances.