Genetic algorithm with multistart search for the p-Hub median problem

The location-allocation problem consists of finding the best selection of points to open facilities (location) and the way for serving the users (allocation). In most cases these problems result in being NP hard. For this reason, heuristic approaches constitute suitable tools to solve the problems. Two well known heuristic techniques are genetic algorithms and multistart search. We consider a hybrid algorithm and compare it with other classical techniques such as the tabu search. The technique could easily be applied to other NP hard problems