Bi-level programming model and hybrid genetic algorithm for flow interception problem with customer choice

This paper investigates how to optimize the facility location strategy such as to maximize the intercepted customer flow, while accounting for ‘‘flow-by’’ customers’ path choice behaviors and their travel cost limitation. A bi-level programming static model is constructed for this problem. An heuristic based on a greedy search is designed to solve it. Consequently, we proposed a chance constrained bi-level model with stochastic flow and fuzzy trip cost threshold level. For solving this uncertain model more efficiently, we integrate the simplex method, genetic algorithm, stochastic simulation and fuzzy simulation to design a hybrid intelligent algorithm. Some examples are generated randomly to illustrate the performance and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.