Approximation algorithms for the Street sweeping problem

Abstract

The Street sweeping problem (SSP) is a variation of the Windy postman problem (WPP) in which we must construct two tours traversing every edge, and each edge must be traversed once in each direction: one on the first tour and the opposite in the second tour. The computational complexity of this problem remains open. We present a (3/2 α + 1)-approximation algorithm for the SSP using an α-approximation algorithm for the WPP. We also present exact algorithms for some classes of graphs.