An electromagnetism-like algorithm for solving a three-dimensional highway alignment problem

Road alignment design is an important determinant of the development cost of road networks. On the one side, it affects road construction and maintenance costs, constituting a significant part of country-wide infrastructure development, management, and operation budget each year. On the other side, it affects road user-related costs of travel time and vehicle use, comprising a significant portion of the total transportation cost. This study adapts the existing electromagnetism-like meta-heuristic algorithm to solve a three-dimensional highway alignment problem, which explores and finds a good route between two given points on a terrain. It detects the potentials of the given initial routes, which are enhanced and shaped to find better positions by means of local and global searches. The final good solution is, then, fine-tuned for a better alignment. Several example problems are designed to show the behavior of the algorithm. The results show that the algorithm satisfactorily maneuvers to by-pass obstacles and build highway structures where necessary. The set of the example problems in this paper may also serve to establish a basis for evaluating the performance of alternative algorithms.