Passing vehicle search (PVS): A novel metaheuristic algorithm

•A novel meta-heuristic optimization method is proposed.•It is based on the mathematics of the passing vehicle on a two-lane highway.•Performance is checked for challenging engineering design problems.

Vehicle passing mechanisms on two-lane highways have been studied since the first decade in the twentieth century and many mathematical models have been proposed. In general, we learn from our surroundings and the experience of driving a vehicle on roads is not an exception. This motivated us to apply the mechanism of vehicle passing on a two-lane highway to optimization problems. Thus, we propose a new metaheuristic optimization algorithm called “passing vehicle search (PVS),” which considers the mathematics of vehicle passing on a two-lane highway. Similar to other metaheuristic methods, PVS is a population-based method that requires an initial set of solutions to start and it then searches for the optimum solution by following the mathematical characteristics of vehicles overtaking on a two-lane highway. A simplified mathematical model is developed for vehicles moving on two-lane highways, which is then modified to solve different optimization problems. We investigated the performance of PVS with various challenging engineering design optimization problems. The results demonstrated the superior effectiveness of PVS compared with other metaheuristic optimization algorithms.