An agent-based framework for solving an equity location problem

Abstract

Agent-Based Models have been recently proposed for solving optimization problems as an alternative to classical optimization methodologies or in combination with them; in particular this approach is useful when the considered problem is defined on a domain that is, to some extent, distributed, complex and heterogeneous. In this paper, we present an adaptation of a general Agent-Based framework for modeling and solving a location problem where the objective function is a measure of "equity" from the demand points to the set of facilities (the Gini Coefficient). We present some computational results confirming the suitability and the effectiveness of the proposed approach. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.