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In the process of distributing newspapers, transfer points play the role of depots. When designing a newspaper distribution system, three types of decisions are to be made:

• 1.
  (1) number and locations of transfer points,
• 2.
  (2) Design of tours originating at the printing office to serve the transfer points,
• 3.
  (3) design of tours emanating from transfer points to serve retailers

Thus, the problem is a combined location/routing problem. The question addressed is the design of a suitable heuristic for solving the problem. This paper gives a comparison of three different procedures:

• 1.
  (A) a tour construction method with implicit transfer point location,
• 2.
  (B) an Alternate Location-Allocation procedure for transfer point location (1) followed by Savings procedures four routing (2) and (3),
• 3.
  (C) a Savings procedure for routing (3) followed by a Drop procedure for location (1) and a Savings procedure for routing (2).

The presently operating …