New approaches for the prize-collecting covering tour problem

In this paper, we consider the prize-collecting covering tour problem (PCCTP), which intends to find a minimum cost tour for travelling teams that grant assistance to people located far from urban centres. We develop a branch-and-cut algorithm, some valid inequalities, and a new set of reduction rules as exact approaches. We also present a hybrid heuristic that combines a state-of-the-art heuristic for the PCCTP with integer programming techniques. Computational experiments showed that the exact approaches found several new optimal solutions while reducing CPU time, and the hybrid heuristic was able to match or improve the solution quality for many instances, along with a significant reduction of running time. Copyright © 2023 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.