A self-regulating pairwise swapping algorithm to search reliability-based user equilibrium

Abstract

The violation of monotonicity on reliability measures (RMs) usually makes the mathematical programming algorithms less efficient in solving the reliability-based user equilibrium (RUE) problem. The swapping algorithms provide a simple and convenient alternative to search traffic equilibrium since they are derivative-free and require weaker monotonicity. However, the existing swapping algorithms are usually based on linear swapping processes which cannot naturally avoid overswapping, and the step-size parameter update methods do not take the swapping feature into account. In this paper, we suggest a self-regulating pairwise swapping algorithm (SRPSA) to search RUE. SRPSA comprises an RM-based pairwise swapping process (RMPSP), a parameter self-diminishing operator and a termination criterion. SRPSA does not need to check the feasibility of either solutions or step-size parameter. It is suggested from the numerical analyses that SRPSA is effective and can swap to the quasi-RUE very fast. Therefore, SRPSA offers a good approach to generate initial points for those superior local search algorithms.