A Hybrid Metaheuristic GA-ACO Algorithm for Simultaneous Hub Location and Bus Network Design

Multimodality is an issue that needs to be considered in the design of bus transit network, particularly in large metropolises. This necessitates the integrated design of bus transit system and other modes. One way to tackle the problem is to locate the transit hubs efficiently, the problem which has been ignored in previous researches. In such networks, the bus transit route network should be designed according to the location of the hubs considering simultaneously that locations of the hubs are also affected by the bus route in the network. In this paper, a hybrid Ant Colony Optimization-Genetic Algorithm (GA-ACO) has been proposed for joint location and design of hubs and bus routes within a network. Some urban planning issues have been also considered in locating the hubs. An illustrative example network, based on a network similar to that of central Hamedan (a city in Iran), has also been solved using the proposed algorithm.