Discrete particle swarm optimization for the team orienteering problem

In this paper, a novel discrete particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is proposed to solve the team orienteering problem (TOP). Discrete evaluation is achieved by redefining all operators and operands used in PSO. To obtain better results, a strengthened PSO, which improves both exploration and exploitation during the search process, is employed. Our algorithm achieves the best known solutions in a short time compared to previous heuristics for the TOP.