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A heuristic method for the minimum toll booth problem

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Abstract

This paper addresses the toll pricing problem in which the objective is to minimize the number of required toll facilities in a traffic network. The problem is shown to be NP-hard. To obtain a solution in a reasonable time, an effective metaheuristic algorithm is developed. The algorithm uses a local search technique in which the neighborhood function employs the dynamic slope scaling procedure to deal with the fixed charge nature of the objective function. Numerical results from 50 randomly generated and three real networks are reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business Administration, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN, 46383, USA

    Lihui Bai

  2. Center for Applied Optimization, Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-6595, USA

    Donald W. Hearn & Siriphong Lawphongpanich

Authors
  1. Lihui Bai
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  2. Donald W. Hearn
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  3. Siriphong Lawphongpanich
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lihui Bai.

Additional information

This research was partially supported by NSF grants DMI-9978642, DMI-0300316 and CMS grant #2008-06.

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Bai, L., Hearn, D.W. & Lawphongpanich, S. A heuristic method for the minimum toll booth problem. J Glob Optim 48, 533–548 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10898-010-9527-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10898-010-9527-7

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