On the Core of Routing Games

Abstract

A repairman makes a round-trip along a set of customers. He starts in his home location, visits each customer exactly once, and returns home. The cost of his trip has to be shared by the customers. A cooperative cost game, called routing game, is associated with this allocation problem, and an l(n2) algorithm is given which computes a core element of a routing game if the core is non-empty. The non-emptiness of the core depends on the tour which is traversed by the repairman. Several procedures are given to construct tours which guarantee the non-emptiness of the core.

JEL Classification: C71, C6