Implementation of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) Algorithm for Route Optimization of Tourist Paths in Takengon

This study aims to design and implement a system for determining the shortest route between tourist destinations in Takengon using the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm. The system is developed to assist travelers in obtaining efficient visitation routes based on distance and travel time. Experiments were conducted on 20 tourist locations, resulting in an optimized route with a total travel distance of 40.40 km and an estimated travel time of 81 minutes. The computation process took only 0.024001 seconds with a memory usage of 20.23 KB. The ACO algorithm was executed using 10 ants with key parameters set to alpha (α) = 1, beta (β) = 2, and rho (ρ) = 0.5. ACO demonstrated high effectiveness in exploring route combinations and iteratively generating near-optimal solutions. The chosen parameters were determined through experimentation to balance solution quality and convergence speed. In addition to generating the optimal visitation sequence, the system also provides complete turn-by-turn navigation instructions, including major roads such as Jalan Lintas Tengah Sumatera and Jalan Lebe Kader. The actual estimated travel route based on the generated navigation covers a distance of 97.4 km with a travel duration of approximately 2 hours and 42 minutes. The results indicate that ACO is an effective and efficient approach for solving medium- to large-scale tourist route optimization problems. The developed system can serve as a practical tool in the tourism sector and has the potential to be adapted and implemented in other tourist regions with similar routing challenges.