GRASP: basic components and enhancements

GRASP (Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedures) is a multistart metaheuristic for producing good-quality solutions of combinatorial optimization problems. Each GRASP iteration is usually made up of a construction phase, where a feasible solution is constructed, and a local search phase which starts at the constructed solution and applies iterative improvement until a locally optimal solution is found. While, in general, the construction phase of GRASP is a randomized greedy algorithm, other types of construction procedures have been proposed. Repeated applications of a construction procedure yields diverse starting solutions for the local search. This chapter gives an overview of GRASP describing its basic components and enhancements to the basic procedure, including reactive GRASP and intensification strategies.