Optimizing route for hazardous materials logistics based on hybrid ant colony algorithm

Abstract

Optimizing Route for Hazardous Materials Logistics (ORHML) belongs to a class of problems referred to as NP-Hard, and a strict constraint of it makes it harder to solve. In order to dealing with ORHML, an improved hybrid ant colony algorithm (HACA) was devised. To achieve the purpose of balancing risk and cost for route based on the principle of ACA that used to solve TSP, the improved HACA was designed. Considering the capacity of road network and the maximum expected risk limits, a route optimization model to minimize the total cost is established based on network flow theory. Improvement on route construction rule and pheromone updating rule was adopted on the basis of the former algorithm. An example was analyzed to demonstrate the correctness of the application. It is proved that improved HACA is efficient and feasible in solving ORHML. © 2013 Haixing Wang et al.