Technical Objectives of the NSF-STTR-Phase II Project

Beyond the multi-objective and bi-level optimization approaches developed and capabilities of the highway alignment optimization model demonstrated in the NSF-STTR-Phase I & IB research, the model can still benefit from many technical and methodological improvements in order to become more realistic, robust, and flexible in use. Although bulk of the Phase II efforts will be focused on launching the basic multi-objective bi-level highway alignment optimization model for sales within the next 2-year period, the following are some remaining research-related objectives that will be considered in the STTR Phase II project for further model improvement.

Intellectual Merits:

Many tangible and intangible factors are associated with optimizing highway alignments. These include, for example, highway design specifications, land-use and terrain complexity, budgets, traffic impacts, environmental concerns, and even interdependency with other projects. Thus, the development of effective methods for processing massive amounts of relevant data, evaluating multiple impacts and optimizing highway alignments, poses major challenges to researchers. In Phase I, our research team developed a state-of-art highway alignment optimization model, which offers well-optimized alignments rather than merely satisfactory ones, by employing multi-objective and bi-level optimization, efficient GIS data processing, and comprehensive evaluation procedures. In Phase II, we will further extend the model’s capabilities by improving its (1) computation efficiency and (2) practicability for real-world applications. 

 For achieving the first objective, effective constraint handling methods that improve solution feasibility during the optimization process, and a parallel genetic algorithm with distributed computing will be developed. For the second objective, the alignment generation mechanism, evaluation and design processes, decision making rules, and user-interface of the model will be upgraded and reformulated. With all these improvements we expect to achieve a highway planning and design model that will lead the world technically, be commercially successful and greatly benefit the U.S. and the world.

See the full proposal of the NSF-STTR-Phase II research project for more detail of the highway alignment optimization model development (technical proposal and commercialization plan).