Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2015, Article ID 981370, 13 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/981370
Optimal Facility Location Model Based on Genetic Simulated Annealing Algorithm for Siting Urban Refueling Stations
1School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
2Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA 01854, USA
Received 2 October 2014; Accepted 18 February 2015
Academic Editor: Marek Lefik
Copyright © 2015 Dawei Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the impact factors and principles of siting urban refueling stations and proposes a three-stage method. The main objective of the method is to minimize refueling vehicles’ detour time. The first stage aims at identifying the most frequently traveled road segments for siting refueling stations. The second stage focuses on adding additional refueling stations to serve vehicles whose demands are not directly satisfied by the refueling stations identified in the first stage. The last stage further adjusts and optimizes the refueling station plan generated by the first two stages. A genetic simulated annealing algorithm is proposed to solve the optimization problem in the second stage and the results are compared to those from the genetic algorithm. A case study is also conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and algorithm. The results indicate the proposed method can provide practical and effective solutions that help planners and government agencies make informed refueling station location decisions.