Travelling Salesperson or other MATLAB tool for meter readers

Hi all, I work in a municipality that is looking to optimize their meter reader routes (water meters). Does anyone have any experience in this and would know if MATLAB would be a good program to use for this function? Does the MATLAB software include the TSP_GA or nearest neighbor toolbox or are these an additional purchase? Or the Global Optimization toolbox?

O wrote a GA years ago on Fortran for as TSP problem, but thought MATLAB might be easier. Our system has 7-9 meter readers and approx. 100,00 services connections.

Thank you so much for any insight you might be able to provide.

Answer 1

[Thomas]

Your problem is similar to the Multiple Traveling sales persons problem.. here is a link that might help

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/19049

[James Winslow]

Thank you. I saw this earlier before posting the question, so I am in the right area. Not being familiar with MATLAB and wanting to have my employer purchase it for this and other applications, do you know if MATLAB includes the Multiple TSP function or do we also need to buy and "add-on" product or Toolbox. I guess I am confused on the help page http://www.mathworks.com/help/ if the TSP is in the main program or a MATLAB Toolbox that is additional. Any thoughts?

[Thomas]

THe above code is available on the MATLAB file i.e. made avaialble for free for everyone by the creator. Please Download and check if it has any toolbox dependencies like the Golbal optimization toolbox..