# Solving the Clustered Traveling Salesman Problem via TSP methods

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.05254 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.05254/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 10 Jul 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [COMPASS: Ordered Clustered Routing at 100K Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.20352/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The Clustered Traveling Salesman Problem (CTSP) is a variant of the popular Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) arising from a number of real-life applications. In this work, we explore a transformation approach that solves the CTSP by converting it to the well-studied TSP. For this purpose, we first investigate a technique to convert a CTSP instance to a TSP and then apply powerful TSP solvers (including exact and heuristic solvers) to solve the resulting TSP instance. We want to answer the following questions: How do state-of-the-art TSP solvers perform on clustered instances converted from the CTSP? Do state-of-the-art TSP solvers compete well with the best performing methods specifically designed for the CTSP? For this purpose, we present intensive computational experiments on various benchmark instances to draw conclusions.