The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes

Bas Loyen; Duncan Bart; Florian Richoux; Daan van den Berg

doi:10.1007/978-3-032-15635-8_30

The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes

Bas Loyen
, Duncan Bart
, Florian Richoux
, Daan van den Berg^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

We generate all 160 valid solutions for the traveling tournament problem with 4 teams, and randomly select 10,000 valid solutions for 6, 8 and 10 teams. For every number of teams, the difference between any two valid solutions is taken an charted. It turns out these differences are very large, even when a key constraint, the home/away assignment, is completely ignored. These results might signal that the use of metaheuristic algorithms for this problem might be highly problematic.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Computational Intelligence
Subtitle of host publication	17th International Joint Conference, IJCCI 2025, Marbella, Spain, October 22–24, 2025, Proceedings, Part II
Editors	Francesco Marcelloni, Kurosh Madani, Niki van Stein, Joaquim Filipe
Publisher	Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Pages	491-503
Number of pages	13
Volume	2
ISBN (Electronic)	9783032156358
ISBN (Print)	9783032156341
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-15635-8_30
Publication status	Published - 2026
Event	17th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence, IJCCI 2025 - Marbella, Spain Duration: 22 Oct 2025 → 24 Oct 2025

Publication series

Name	Communications in Computer and Information Science
Publisher	Springer
Volume	2828 CCIS
ISSN (Print)	1865-0929
ISSN (Electronic)	1865-0937

Name	IJCCI: International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence
Publisher	Springer
Volume	2025

Conference

Conference	17th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence, IJCCI 2025
Country/Territory	Spain
City	Marbella
Period	22/10/25 → 24/10/25

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

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10.1007/978-3-032-15635-8_30

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Cite this

Loyen, B., Bart, D., Richoux, F., & van den Berg, D. (2026). The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes. In F. Marcelloni, K. Madani, N. van Stein, & J. Filipe (Eds.), Computational Intelligence: 17th International Joint Conference, IJCCI 2025, Marbella, Spain, October 22–24, 2025, Proceedings, Part II (Vol. 2, pp. 491-503). (Communications in Computer and Information Science; Vol. 2828 CCIS), (IJCCI: International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence; Vol. 2025). Springer Nature Switzerland AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-15635-8_30

Loyen, Bas ; Bart, Duncan ; Richoux, Florian et al. / The Traveling Tournament Problem : Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes. Computational Intelligence: 17th International Joint Conference, IJCCI 2025, Marbella, Spain, October 22–24, 2025, Proceedings, Part II. editor / Francesco Marcelloni ; Kurosh Madani ; Niki van Stein ; Joaquim Filipe. Vol. 2 Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2026. pp. 491-503 (Communications in Computer and Information Science). (IJCCI: International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence).

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title = "The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes",

abstract = "We generate all 160 valid solutions for the traveling tournament problem with 4 teams, and randomly select 10,000 valid solutions for 6, 8 and 10 teams. For every number of teams, the difference between any two valid solutions is taken an charted. It turns out these differences are very large, even when a key constraint, the home/away assignment, is completely ignored. These results might signal that the use of metaheuristic algorithms for this problem might be highly problematic.",

author = "Bas Loyen and Duncan Bart and Florian Richoux and \{van den Berg\}, Daan",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.; 17th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence, IJCCI 2025 ; Conference date: 22-10-2025 Through 24-10-2025",

year = "2026",

doi = "10.1007/978-3-032-15635-8\_30",

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Loyen, B, Bart, D, Richoux, F & van den Berg, D 2026, The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes. in F Marcelloni, K Madani, N van Stein & J Filipe (eds), Computational Intelligence: 17th International Joint Conference, IJCCI 2025, Marbella, Spain, October 22–24, 2025, Proceedings, Part II. vol. 2, Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol. 2828 CCIS, IJCCI: International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence, vol. 2025, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, pp. 491-503, 17th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence, IJCCI 2025, Marbella, Spain, 22/10/25. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-15635-8_30

The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes. / Loyen, Bas; Bart, Duncan; Richoux, Florian et al.
Computational Intelligence: 17th International Joint Conference, IJCCI 2025, Marbella, Spain, October 22–24, 2025, Proceedings, Part II. ed. / Francesco Marcelloni; Kurosh Madani; Niki van Stein; Joaquim Filipe. Vol. 2 Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2026. p. 491-503 (Communications in Computer and Information Science; Vol. 2828 CCIS), (IJCCI: International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence; Vol. 2025).

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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PY - 2026

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N2 - We generate all 160 valid solutions for the traveling tournament problem with 4 teams, and randomly select 10,000 valid solutions for 6, 8 and 10 teams. For every number of teams, the difference between any two valid solutions is taken an charted. It turns out these differences are very large, even when a key constraint, the home/away assignment, is completely ignored. These results might signal that the use of metaheuristic algorithms for this problem might be highly problematic.

AB - We generate all 160 valid solutions for the traveling tournament problem with 4 teams, and randomly select 10,000 valid solutions for 6, 8 and 10 teams. For every number of teams, the difference between any two valid solutions is taken an charted. It turns out these differences are very large, even when a key constraint, the home/away assignment, is completely ignored. These results might signal that the use of metaheuristic algorithms for this problem might be highly problematic.

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Loyen B, Bart D, Richoux F, van den Berg D. The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes. In Marcelloni F, Madani K, van Stein N, Filipe J, editors, Computational Intelligence: 17th International Joint Conference, IJCCI 2025, Marbella, Spain, October 22–24, 2025, Proceedings, Part II. Vol. 2. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. 2026. p. 491-503. (Communications in Computer and Information Science). (IJCCI: International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence). Epub 2026 Feb 1. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-15635-8_30

The Traveling Tournament Problem: Valid Solutions Are Different Across Instance Sizes

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