Analysis of the efficacy of a Two-Stage methodology for ant colony optimization: Case of study with TSP and QAP

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a bioinspired metaheuristic based on ants foraging used to solve different classes of problems. In this paper, we show how, using a Two-Stage approach the quality of the solutions of ACO is improved. The Two-Stage approach can be applied to different ACO. The performance of this new approach is studied in the Traveling Salesman Problem and Quadratic Assignment Problem. The experimental results show that the obtained solutions are improved both problems using the Two-Stage approach. Several statistical procedures are applied to show the effect of this new approach. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.