Location-allocation problem for intra-transportation system in a big company by using meta-heuristic algorithm

•We present location-allocation problem for parking facilities in large company.•To analyze the problem, a mathematical model was designed and solved.•A meta-heuristic algorithm solves the problem in more complex aspects.•The obtained results have been implemented in Mobarakeh Steel Company.

This paper presents the location-allocation problem of parking facilities in Mobarakeh Steel Company. The aim is to find the optimal location for the parking facilities and allocate travels between departments to each parking facility. To optimize the cost and facing the transportation demands of all departments, a mathematical model is designed and solved by a commercial software package. Also, the number of vehicles allocated to each parking facility is determined. A hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm combining a genetic algorithm with parallel simulated annealing is developed which can be used even in more complicated structure of the problem. The results show that this hybrid algorithm is highly efficient in solving this kind of problems.