A comparison of acceptance criteria for the adaptive large neighbourhood search metaheuristic

specific problem independent components. This paper investigates one such component, the move acceptance criterion in ALNS, and compares a range of alternatives. Through extensive computational testing, the alternative move acceptance criteria are ranked in three groups, depending on the performance of the resulting ALNS implementations. Among the best variants, we find versions of criteria based on simulated annealing, threshold acceptance, and record-to-record travel, with a version of the latter being consistently undominated by the others. Additional analyses focus on the search behavior, and multiple linear regression is used to identify characteristics of search behavior that are associated with good search performance.