Evaluation of Heuristic Optimization Methods in Urban Arterial Network Optimization

Heuristic optimization methods have been widely applied in the engineering applications that are known to be extremely difficult to find an optimal solution using traditional mathematical approaches. Examples of such optimizations in transportation problems includes traveling salesman, dynamic traffic assignment, ramp metering, developing traffic signal timing plans, etc. Studies have shown mixed results on the performances of various heuristic optimization methods. Obviously, the performance depends largely on the nature of problems and many other factors such as complexity of solution space (i.e., number of variables, and their ranges), etc. This paper presents an evaluation of a few selected heuristic optimization methods applied to solving a transportation optimization problem. Three optimization methods used are genetic algorithm (GA), harmony search (HS), and OptQuest. The problem chosen for this study is an optimization of an urban arterial network in Northern Virginia, USA. The study results showed that the control parameters in GA and HS significantly affected the performance, and with properly determined parameters, GA outperformed HS and OptQuest. In addition, the control parameters in GA and HS are robust enough for increased traffic conditions.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Agbolosu-Amison, Seli James
  • Park, Byungkyu (Brian)
  • Yun, Ilsoo
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2009-1-11 to 2009-1-15
• Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 23p
• Monograph Title: TRB 88th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Advanced traffic management systems; Arterial highways; Dynamic traffic assignment; Genetic algorithms; Heuristic methods; Operations; Optimization; Traffic flow; Traffic signal timing; Traveling salesman problem; Urban highways
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01126687
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 09-2857
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 17 2009 9:56AM