Quotient algorithm: a simple heuristic for the travelling salesperson problem inspired by human solutions

The Travelling Salesperson Problem (TSP) is a classic example of a non-polynomial (NP) hard problem, which cannot be practically solved using exhaustive algorithmic approaches. This study explores the human approach, and presents a Quotient Algorithm (Quot) - a modification to the nearest neighbor algorithm - inspired by human path crossing avoidance behavior when solving ETSP graphs. We compared the developed Quot results against standard heuristic algorithms and found that this simple modification outperforms the NN, as well as other existing heuristic approaches