Generation of public transit network by network evolution model

Optimization of public transit network is an imperative subject to reduce the environmental burden. Furthermore, considering the fact that earthquakes occur frequently in Japan, it can be easily imagined that the commuter transportation system in and around Tokyo will be confused if the railway network is collapsed. The bus or waterbus is expected as substitute transportation mode for the railway under disaster circumstances. Thus, it is essential to organize routes for bus or waterbus immediately taking into account of devastated situations. A number of algorithms have been reported for optimal bus transit route network and most of them rely on heuristics approach. In this paper, a hybrid algorithm of heuristics and meta-heuristics approach organizing the bus transit route network is proposed. The heuristics algorithm is based on the network evolution model and the meta-heuristics algorithm relies on simulated annealing. The network evolution model is actively studied in the research field of complex network and it provides various findings on characteristic of real world networks. Since the network evolution model generates networks using local information, it has potential to be a fast algorithm to accommodate the operation under disaster circumstances. On the other hand, the SA algorithm is applied to avoid local minima posed from using only heuristics approach.