Abstract
The complexity of having an optimal route for traveling across a farmland may increase depending upon the expansion of farm management area. Such a problem is called the traveling salesman problem and should be considered when farmers propose management plans. Therefore, we analyzed increases in the total travel distance and time taken for observing the paddy fields under a simulated situation of farming area expansion.
The results of this study revealed that the increase pattern of the total travel distance diminished gradually compared with the additional number of paddy fields by renting them randomly, and that the total travel time showed a different increase pattern to the total travel distance. In particular, the total travel time corresponded approximately to the increase pattern of additional number of paddy fields under the setting of this simulation analysis. Thus, our basic simulation provided some useful information about the situation, necessary for the development of future scale expansion.
