Road map partitioning for routing by using a micro steady state evolutionary algorithm

Abstract

The constantly increasing number of vehicles and the immense size and complexity of road maps set a tough scenario for real world routing. In spite of the tremendous efforts done up to date to tackle this problem, finding the shortest-path in practice is still a challenge due to memory and time constrains. Moreover, most of the efforts have been focused on algorithmics, setting aside the management of the data. However, memory and time constraints are very important to actually construct real world applications, advising a new global approach. In this study we propose a holistic strategy for finding the shortest-path based on efficiently managing the road map data. Our proposal is based on the tile map partitioning, a logic geographical partition strategy.We have developed a routing system highly scalable based on a micro steady state evolutionary algorithm to find the optimal tile map partitioning. We show the actual efficiency and scalability by using the road maps of Malaga, Spain, and Mexico City, making it clear the significant reductions in the time needed to compute the shortest-path (in a real application), what is a key issue that can be freely exploited in future open software for maps.