Edexcel D2 — Question 6

Exam BoardEdexcel
ModuleD2 (Decision Mathematics 2)
TopicTravelling Salesman

6. This question should be answered on the sheet provided. A furniture company in Leeds is considering opening outlets in six other cities.
The table below shows the distances, in miles, between all seven cities.
LeedsLiverpoolManchesterNewcastleNottinghamOxfordYork
Leeds-7140967116528
Liverpool71-311559215593
Manchester4031-1366214167
Newcastle96155136-15625078
Nottingham719262156-9478
Oxford16515514125094-172
York2893677878172-
  1. Starting with Leeds, obtain and draw a minimum spanning tree for this network of cities showing your method clearly.
    (4 marks)
    A representative of the company is to visit each of the areas being considered. He wishes to plan a journey of minimum length starting and ending in Leeds and visiting each of the other cities in the table once. Assuming that the network satisfies the triangle inequality,
  2. find an initial upper bound for the length of his journey,
  3. improve this upper bound to find an upper bound of less than 575 miles.
  4. By deleting Leeds, find a lower bound for his journey. Turn over