Abstract. We introduce a novel representation for the graph colouring problem, called the Integer Merge Model, which aims to reduce the time complexity of an algorithm. Moreover, our model provides useful information for guiding heuristics as well as a compact description for algorithms. To verify the potential of the model, we use it in dsatur, in an evolutionary algorithm, and in the same evolutionary algorithm extended with heuristics. An empiricial investigation is performed to show an increase in efficiency on two problem suites , a set of practical problem instances and a set of hard problem instances from the phase transition.
István Juhos, Jano I. van Hemert