Empirical evaluation of construction heuristics for the multidimensional assignment problem

Abstract: The multidimensional assignment problem (MAP) (abbreviated s-AP in the case of s dimensions) is an extension of the well-known assignment problem. The most studied case of MAP is 3-AP, though the problems with larger values of s have also a number of applications. In this paper we consider four fast construction heuristics for MAP. One of the heuristics is new. A modification of the heuristics is proposed to optimize the access to slow computer memory. The results of computational experiments for several instance families are provided and discussed.