---
title: "TSPLIB: papers using this data, journals and trends"
description: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 50 archived papers mentioned TSPLIB in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jan 2026 (5)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/tsplib
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/tsplib.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 50 archived papers mentioned TSPLIB in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jan 2026 (5). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# TSPLIB

[Browse dataset profiles](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/directory/page/6.md)

Standard problem instances for routing, scheduling and integer programming, and test functions for metaheuristics.

- data category: Optimization benchmark instances
- 0 papers in the last 7 days
- Names searched for: TSPLIB

Most-used data: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/datasets.md · All Optimization benchmark instances datasets: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/optimization-benchmark-instances.md



## Key findings

- From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 50 archived papers mentioned TSPLIB in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jan 2026 (5).
- No paper of the tracked journals mentioned TSPLIB in the last 30 days (2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05).
- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), TSPLIB was mentioned in 82 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (46) and AI (36).
- 15 of them were published in 2025, against 6 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur les réseaux d'entreprise, la logistique et le transport (3), HEC Montréal (3) and Jilin University (3).
- The journals publishing most of them were Computers & Operations Research (11), European Journal of Operational Research (4) and IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (4).
- The most-cited of them is “Simulated annealing based symbiotic organisms search optimization algorithm for traveling salesman problem” (Expert Systems with Applications, 2017), with 188 citations.
- Papers use TSPLIB most often with CVRPLIB (5) and Taillard instances (4); it has 2 partners in the code and data network, in the group around S&P 500, Economic Policy…, Compustat.

## Mentions over 36 months

*Papers mentioning it by publication month, Nov 2023 to Oct 2026 (titles, abstracts and keywords; the full texts of earlier months are still being searched)*

| Trend | Nov 23–Oct 24 | Nov 24–Oct 25 | Nov 25–Oct 26 | 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
|  | 16 | 15 | 19 | 50 |

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 12 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 5 |
| All categories | 6 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 5 | 16 | 15 | 17 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Computers & Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-operations-research.md) | 11 |
| 2 | [European Journal of Operational Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-operational-research.md) | 4 |
| 3 | [IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-evolutionary-computation.md) | 4 |
| 4 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 3 |
| 5 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 3 |
| 6 | [Journal of Heuristics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-heuristics.md) | 3 |
| 7 | [IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ieee-transactions-on-neural-networks-and-learning-systems.md) | 3 |
| 8 | [Swarm and Evolutionary Computation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/swarm-and-evolutionary-computation.md) | 3 |
| 9 | [Mathematical Programming](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/mathematical-programming.md) | 2 |
| 10 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 2 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur les réseaux d'entreprise, la logistique et le transport | 3 |
| 2 | HEC Montréal | 3 |
| 3 | [Jilin University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/jilin-university.md) | 3 |
| 4 | [Nanyang Technological University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanyang-technological-university.md) | 3 |
| 5 | [South China University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/south-china-university-of-technology.md) | 3 |
| 6 | Aalborg University | 2 |
| 7 | [Carnegie Mellon University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/carnegie-mellon-university.md) | 2 |
| 8 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 2 |
| 9 | [Hanyang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hanyang-university.md) | 2 |
| 10 | Instituto Universitario de Matemáticas y Aplicaciones | 2 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 14 |
| 2 | Spain | 7 |
| 3 | Canada | 6 |
| 4 | United States | 5 |
| 5 | Denmark | 4 |
| 6 | France | 4 |
| 7 | United Kingdom | 4 |
| 8 | Italy | 4 |
| 9 | South Korea | 4 |
| 10 | Singapore | 4 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | traveling salesman problem | 23 |
| 2 | [combinatorial optimization](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/combinatorial-optimization.md) | 18 |
| 3 | branch-and-cut | 8 |
| 4 | [vehicle routing](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/vehicle-routing.md) | 8 |
| 5 | TSPLIB | 5 |
| 6 | TSPLIB benchmark | 5 |
| 7 | local search | 4 |
| 8 | valid inequalities | 4 |
| 9 | NP-hard problems | 3 |
| 10 | ant colony optimization | 3 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 188 | 1.6 | [Simulated annealing based symbiotic organisms search optimization algorithm for traveling salesman problem](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2017.01.053) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2017-02-04 | Absalom El-Shamir Ezugwu, Aderemi O. Adewumi, Marc Eduard Frincu |
| 2 | 138 | 1.2 | [A hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization – Variable Neighborhood Search algorithm for Constrained Shortest Path problems](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2017.03.031) | [European Journal of Operational Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-operational-research.md) | 2017-03-16 | Yannis Marinakis, Athanasios Migdalas, Angelo Sifaleras A |
| 3 | 123 | 1.1 | [A hybrid algorithm using a genetic algorithm and multiagent reinforcement learning heuristic to solve the traveling salesman problem](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-017-2880-4) | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 2017-02-23 | Mir Mohammad Alipour, Seyed Naser Razavi, Mohammad‐Reza Feizi‐Derakhshi et al. |
| 4 | 119 | 1.1 | [Discrete symbiotic organisms search algorithm for travelling salesman problem](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2017.06.007) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2017-06-07 | Absalom El-Shamir Ezugwu, Aderemi O. Adewumi |
| 5 | 104 | 1.2 | [A new efficient hybrid algorithm for large scale multiple traveling salesman problems](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2019.112867) | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 2019-08-08 | Chao Jiang, Zhongping Wan, Zhenhua Peng |

## Used together with

Papers use TSPLIB most often with CVRPLIB (5) and Taillard instances (4); it has 2 partners in the code and data network, in the group around S&P 500, Economic Policy…, Compustat.

*What papers use TSPLIB together with (at least 3 papers; lift 1 = chance)*

| Used with | Type | Papers using both | Lift |
|---|---|---:|---:|
| [CVRPLIB](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/cvrplib.md) | Dataset | 5 | 208.4 |
| [Taillard instances](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/taillard-instances.md) | Dataset | 4 | 21.8 |

The whole network: https://scholar4ai.com/code/network.md

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). TSPLIB. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/tsplib

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-datasets-tsplib,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {TSPLIB},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/tsplib}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).