GLOP: Learning Global Partition and Local Construction for Solving Large-scale Routing Problems in Real-time
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Abstract (arXiv)
The recent end-to-end neural solvers have shown promise for small-scale routing problems but suffered from limited real-time scaling-up performance. This paper proposes GLOP (Global and Local Optimization Policies), a unified hierarchical framework that efficiently scales toward large-scale routing problems. GLOP partitions large routing problems into Travelling Salesman Problems (TSPs) and TSPs into Shortest Hamiltonian Path Problems. For the first time, we hybridize non-autoregressive neural heuristics for coarse-grained problem partitions and autoregressive neural heuristics for fine-grained route constructions, leveraging the scalability of the former and the meticulousness of the latter. Experimental results show that GLOP achieves competitive and state-of-the-art real-time performance on large-scale routing problems, including TSP, ATSP, CVRP, and PCTSP.
Key facts. Cited by 82 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 33 of its 58 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Dec 2023.
Builds on
33 of 58 references.
References · 33
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21 more
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Citing papers per year: 2024: 21; 2025: 31; 2026: 30.
82 papers.
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- 2024ReEvo: Large Language Models as Hyper-Heuristics with Reflective Evolutioncited by 266
- 2024RouteFinder: Towards Foundation Models for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 54
- 2024Ant Colony Sampling with GFlowNets for Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 53
- 2024INViT: A Generalizable Routing Problem Solver with Invariant Nested View Transformercited by 43
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- 2024Self-Improved Learning for Scalable Neural Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 29
- 2024Learning to Handle Complex Constraints for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 29
- 2024Position: Rethinking Post-Hoc Search-Based Neural Approaches for Solving Large-Scale Traveling Salesman Problemscited by 24
- 2024Neural Combinatorial Optimization Algorithms for Solving Vehicle Routing Problems: A Comprehensive Survey with Perspectivescited by 23
- 2024Distance-aware Attention Reshaping: Enhance Generalization of Neural Solver for Large-scale Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 15
- 2025Neural Deconstruction Search for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 15
- 2025Destroy and Repair Using Hyper Graphs for Routingcited by 14
38 more
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- 2025MTL-KD: Multi-Task Learning Via Knowledge Distillation for Generalizable Neural Vehicle Routing Solvercited by 13
- 2025Improving Generalization of Neural Combinatorial Optimization for Vehicle Routing Problems via Test-Time Projection Learningcited by 12
- 2024DISCO: Efficient Diffusion Solver for Large-Scale Combinatorial Optimization Problemscited by 10
- 2025RRNCO: Towards Real-World Routing with Neural Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 10
- 2025Learning to Insert for Constructive Neural Vehicle Routing Solvercited by 10
- 2024Instance-Conditioned Adaptation for Large-scale Generalization of Neural Routing Solvercited by 9
- 2024Hierarchical Neural Constructive Solver for Real-world TSP Scenarioscited by 9
- 2024Collaboration! Towards Robust Neural Methods for Routing Problemscited by 9
- 2024Ensembling Prioritized Hybrid Policies for Multi-agent Pathfindingcited by 7
- 2024A GREAT Architecture for Edge-Based Graph Problems Like TSPcited by 7
- 2024PARCO: Parallel AutoRegressive Models for Multi-Agent Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 7
- 2025Learning-Guided Rolling Horizon Optimization for Long-Horizon Flexible Job-Shop Schedulingcited by 7
- 2025URS: A Unified Neural Routing Solver for Cross-Problem Zero-Shot Generalizationcited by 7
- 2025Hybrid-Balance GFlowNet for Solving Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 7
- 2025Multi-Task Vehicle Routing Solver via Mixture of Specialized Experts under State-Decomposable MDPcited by 7
- 2026RADAR: Learning to Route with Asymmetry-aware DistAnce Representationscited by 7
- 2024Tackling Prevalent Conditions in Unsupervised Combinatorial Optimization: Cardinality, Minimum, Covering, and Morecited by 6
- 2025Learning for routing: A guided review of recent developments and future directionscited by 6
- 2025VRPAgent: LLM-Driven Discovery of Heuristic Operators for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 6
- 2024Neural Solver Selection for Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 5
- 2025Learning to Segment for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 5
- 2026Survey on Neural Routing Solverscited by 4
- 2024Beyond the Heatmap: A Rigorous Evaluation of Component Impact in MCTS-Based TSP Solverscited by 3
- 2025GELD: A Unified Neural Model for Efficiently Solving Traveling Salesman Problems Across Different Scalescited by 3
- 2025Efficient Neural Combinatorial Optimization Solver for the Min-max Heterogeneous Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problemcited by 3
- 2025Probing Neural Combinatorial Optimization Modelscited by 3
- 2025LocalEscaper: A Weakly-supervised Framework with Regional Reconstruction for Scalable Neural TSP Solverscited by 2
- 2025DiffGED: Computing Graph Edit Distance via Diffusion-based Graph Matchingcited by 2
- 2025Beyond Simple Graphs: Neural Multi-Objective Routing on Multigraphscited by 2
- 2026Towards Efficient Constraint Handling in Neural Solvers for Routing Problemscited by 2
- 2026Chain-of-Context Learning: Dynamic Constraint Understanding for Multi-Task VRPscited by 2
- 2024DeepMDV: Global Spatial Matching for Multi-depot Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 1
- 2024IDEQ -- Improving Diffusion Models for the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) by Leveraging the Structure of the Solution Spacecited by 1
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- 2025Bandit based Dynamic Candidate Edge Selection in Solving Traveling Salesman Problemscited by 1
- 2025Recurrent State Encoders for Efficient Neural Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 1
- 2025ViTSP: A Vision Language Models Guided Framework for Solving Large-Scale Traveling Salesman Problemscited by 1
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- 2026Just Initialize: A Training-Free Initialization Component for Large-Scale Routing Optimization28 Sep 2026
- 2026Compute Time Scaling with Recursive Models for Combinatorial Optimization28 Sep 2026
- 2026COMPASS: Ordered Clustered Routing at 100K Scale17 Sep 2026
- 2026Improving Cross-Problem Vehicle Routing with Locally Augmented Preferences and Representation Disentanglement25 Aug 2026
- 2026DualCert: A Solver for the Traveling Salesman Problem with Constraint-Coupled Learning10 Aug 2026
- 2026TSP with Predictions: Heatmap to Tour with Provable Guarantees4 Jul 2026
- 2026Leveraging Structural Constraints for Diffusion-based Neural TSP Solvers8 Jun 2026
- 2026Beyond Static Priors: Dynamic Neural Guidance for Large-Scale Ant Colony Optimization2 Jun 2026
- 2026Edge-aware Decoding for Neural Asymmetric Routing1 Jun 2026
- 2026SPACE: Unifying Symmetric and Asymmetric Routing Problems for Generalist Neural Solver23 May 2026
- 2026Learning to Solve Compositional Geometry Routing Problems18 May 2026
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- 2026Neural Cluster First, Route Second: Capacitated Vehicle Routing via Differentiable Optimal Transport10 May 2026
- 2026Two-Stage Learned Decomposition for Scalable Routing on Multigraphs6 May 2026
- 2026FiLMMeD: Feature-wise Linear Modulation for Cross-Problem Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing30 Apr 2026
- 2026A Learning Method with Gap-Aware Generation for Heterogeneous DAG Scheduling24 Mar 2026
- 2026Learning to Solve Orienteering Problem with Time Windows and Variable Profits6 Mar 2026
- 2026RADAR: Learning to Route with Asymmetry-aware DistAnce Representations3 Mar 2026
- 2026Chain-of-Context Learning: Dynamic Constraint Understanding for Multi-Task VRPs2 Mar 2026
- 2026Efficient Decoder Scaling Strategy for Neural Routing Solvers28 Feb 2026
- 2026Survey on Neural Routing Solvers25 Feb 2026
- 2026Rethinking Efficiency in Neural Combinatorial Optimization: Batched Preference Optimization with Mamba24 Feb 2026
- 2026Towards Efficient Constraint Handling in Neural Solvers for Routing Problems17 Feb 2026
- 2026CADO: From Imitation to Cost Minimization for Heatmap-based Solvers in Combinatorial Optimization9 Feb 2026
- 2026Beyond Solving: Prescriptive Probing for Neural Routing Solvers6 Feb 2026
- 2026Small Shifts, Large Gains: Unlocking Traditional TSP Heuristic Guided-Sampling via Unsupervised Neural Instance Modification31 Jan 2026
- 2026OD-Gear: Online Decomposition and Group Sampling for Expert-Guided Adversarial Routing in Scalable Capacitated Vehicle Routing31 Jan 2026
- 2026SEAFormer: A Spatial Proximity and Edge-Aware Transformer for Real-World Vehicle Routing Problems27 Jan 2026
- 2026HeatACO: A Heatmap-Guided Max--Min Ant System for Large-Scale Travelling Salesman Problems26 Jan 2026
- 2025PortAgent: LLM-driven Vehicle Dispatching Agent for Port Terminals16 Dec 2025
- 2025Probing Neural Combinatorial Optimization Models25 Oct 2025
- 2025Multi-Task Vehicle Routing Solver via Mixture of Specialized Experts under State-Decomposable MDP24 Oct 2025
- 2025Empowering Targeted Neighborhood Search via Hyper Tour for Large-Scale TSP23 Oct 2025
- 2025VRPAgent: LLM-Driven Discovery of Heuristic Operators for Vehicle Routing Problems8 Oct 2025
- 2025Hybrid-Balance GFlowNet for Solving Vehicle Routing Problems6 Oct 2025
- 2025ViTSP: A Vision Language Models Guided Framework for Solving Large-Scale Traveling Salesman Problems27 Sep 2025
- 2025URS: A Unified Neural Routing Solver for Cross-Problem Zero-Shot Generalization27 Sep 2025
- 2025NeuFACO: Neural Focused Ant Colony Optimization for Traveling Salesman Problem21 Sep 2025
- 2025Recurrent State Encoders for Efficient Neural Combinatorial Optimization5 Sep 2025
- 2025Hybrid Node-Destroyer Model with Large Neighborhood Search for Solving the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem12 Aug 2025
- 2025On Distributional Dependent Performance of Classical and Neural Routing Solvers4 Aug 2025
- 2025Efficient Neural Combinatorial Optimization Solver for the Min-max Heterogeneous Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem28 Jul 2025
- 2025Learning for routing: A guided review of recent developments and future directions30 Jun 2025
- 2025Beyond Simple Graphs: Neural Multi-Objective Routing on Multigraphs27 Jun 2025
- 2025Learning to Segment for Vehicle Routing Problems22 Jun 2025
- 2025GELD: A Unified Neural Model for Efficiently Solving Traveling Salesman Problems Across Different Scales7 Jun 2025
- 2025MTL-KD: Multi-Task Learning Via Knowledge Distillation for Generalizable Neural Vehicle Routing Solver3 Jun 2025
- 2025Improving Generalization of Neural Combinatorial Optimization for Vehicle Routing Problems via Test-Time Projection Learning3 Jun 2025
- 2025RsGCN: Subgraph-Based Rescaling Enhances Generalization of GCNs for Solving Traveling Salesman Problems31 May 2025
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- 2025DiffGED: Computing Graph Edit Distance via Diffusion-based Graph Matchingcited by 2
- 2024IDEQ -- Improving Diffusion Models for the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) by Leveraging the Structure of the Solution Spacecited by 1
- 2026Leveraging Structural Constraints for Diffusion-based Neural TSP Solverscited by 1
- 2026Leveraging Structural Constraints for Diffusion-based Neural TSP Solvers8 Jun 2026
- 2025DiffGED: Computing Graph Edit Distance via Diffusion-based Graph Matching24 Mar 2025
- 2024IDEQ -- Improving Diffusion Models for the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) by Leveraging the Structure of the Solution Space18 Dec 2024
- 2024ReEvo: Large Language Models as Hyper-Heuristics with Reflective Evolutioncited by 266
- 2024RouteFinder: Towards Foundation Models for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 54
- 2024Ant Colony Sampling with GFlowNets for Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 53
- 2024INViT: A Generalizable Routing Problem Solver with Invariant Nested View Transformercited by 43
- 2025Rethinking Light Decoder-based Solvers for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 36
- 2024Self-Improved Learning for Scalable Neural Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 29
- 2024Learning to Handle Complex Constraints for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 29
- 2024Position: Rethinking Post-Hoc Search-Based Neural Approaches for Solving Large-Scale Traveling Salesman Problemscited by 24
- 2024Neural Combinatorial Optimization Algorithms for Solving Vehicle Routing Problems: A Comprehensive Survey with Perspectivescited by 23
- 2024Distance-aware Attention Reshaping: Enhance Generalization of Neural Solver for Large-scale Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 15
- 2025Neural Deconstruction Search for Vehicle Routing Problemscited by 15
- 2025Destroy and Repair Using Hyper Graphs for Routingcited by 14
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- 2026MiLoop: Selective Memory Propagation for Neural Combinatorial Optimization1 Oct 2026
- 2026Just Initialize: A Training-Free Initialization Component for Large-Scale Routing Optimization28 Sep 2026
- 2026Compute Time Scaling with Recursive Models for Combinatorial Optimization28 Sep 2026
- 2026COMPASS: Ordered Clustered Routing at 100K Scale17 Sep 2026
- 2026Improving Cross-Problem Vehicle Routing with Locally Augmented Preferences and Representation Disentanglement25 Aug 2026
- 2026DualCert: A Solver for the Traveling Salesman Problem with Constraint-Coupled Learning10 Aug 2026
- 2026TSP with Predictions: Heatmap to Tour with Provable Guarantees4 Jul 2026
- 2026Beyond Static Priors: Dynamic Neural Guidance for Large-Scale Ant Colony Optimization2 Jun 2026
- 2026Edge-aware Decoding for Neural Asymmetric Routing1 Jun 2026
- 2026SPACE: Unifying Symmetric and Asymmetric Routing Problems for Generalist Neural Solver23 May 2026
- 2026Learning to Solve Compositional Geometry Routing Problems18 May 2026
- 2026Rethinking Constraint Awareness for Efficient State Embedding of Neural Routing Solver11 May 2026
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