Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
We consider a variation of the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) in which the cities visited have non-zero spatial extent, in contrast with the classical TSP, which has destinations that are mathematical points. This new approach opens up both new analyses of the problem and new algorithms for solutions, while remaining an economic first approximation to the standard problem. We present one particular solution that, depending on the number and size of the cities, can improve existing algorithms solving the classical TSP.