Determining on-street parking places in urban road networks using meta-heuristic harmony search algorithm

Abstract

This study aims to develop a simulation/optimization model for the solution to the problem of determining on-street parking places in urban road networks. The problem is dealt within the Discrete Network Design (DND) context due to the binary decision variables and the bi-level programming technique is used for the solution of the problem. The upper level represents the determination of on-street parking places while the reaction of drivers’ to the design is handled in user equilibrium manner in the lower level. The upper level problem is formulized as a non-linear mixed integer programming problem and the meta-heuristic Harmony Search (HS) optimization technique is employed for the solution. In the proposed model, VISUM traffic analysis software is utilized as the simulation tool for solving the lower level problem. The performance of the proposed model is tested on Sioux-Falls road network which has widely been used on DND studies in the previous works. Results show that determining optimal or near-optimal on-street parking places may be achieved by using the proposed model. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.