Using geographic information system and simulated annealing for optimizing the railway design

Abstract

Optimum selection of the rail track in terms of quantity and quality has an important role in the modulation of construction costs, operation, and maintenance. If the routing of the railway is optimally studied, it will affect the process of construction and operation including infrastructure, pavement and economic costs. The effective role of the Geographic Information System (GIS) and metaheuristic algorithms is undeniable in the optimization of railways. The present research uses the simulated annealing as effective algorithm due to its speed and accuracy; it has been modeled in the GIS to develop the optimum design of the railway track that can be used in the design of the primary route to identify and provide the optimum route for the passage of the railway line between two points. The results showed that the designed route, using the mentioned algorithm in the GIS, has been able to use innovation in the design of route to determine the optimum the route for the railway lines with reasonable accuracy based on the design constraints and the environmental conditions. There is a lower possibility of accepting bad routes with the usage of this design approach and the track with this method has an acceptable value.