Genetic Algorithm-Based Optimization Approach for an Uncapacitated Single Allocation P-hub Center Problem with more realistic cost structure

Abstract

A p-hub center network design problem is definition of some nodes as hubs and allocation of non-hub nodes to them wherein the maximum travel times between any pair of nodes is minimized. The distinctive feature of this study is proposing a new mathematical formulation for modeling costs in a p-hub center problem. Here, instead of considering costs as a linear function of distance, for the first time, we formulate costs as a summation of different parts: fixed cost, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) cost, energy cost and personnel cost. Such integrated model results in a hard-to-solve nonlinear formulation. To validate the proposed model, a small scale problem instance of CAB dataset solved by LINGO software. Because of inability to solve bigger problems, we prepared a Genetic Algorithm (GA) by MATLAB software to solve complete problems of CAB and AP datasets.