A Meta-heuristic Algorithm for Solving the Road Network Design Problem in Regional Contexts

In this paper we focus on the road network design problem in regional contexts. In this case a planner may have financial resources to invest for improving performance on existing roads. Against the background of an extensive literature of optimisation models and algorithms to solve this problem, the innovative aspects of this paper are as follows: the optimisation model refers to the daily operation of the network; the objective function also considers the environmental costs; the proposed meta-heuristic solution algorithm has never been used to solve this problem; and the assignment algorithm is based on Ant Colony Optimisation in order to reduce computing times. The model and algorithm were tested on a real-scale problem, showing their applicability to real dimension networks.