Cost-Benefit Analysis and Evolutionary Computing

This book systematically addresses the issue of interdependence between road projects in a network, when prioritising and scheduling road expansion and maintenance.

The book presents substantial applications for both rural and urban projects and to the optimization of maintenance. The authors confirm the extreme sensitivity to project timing but also show that solutions with almost equal net present values may have dissimilar work schedules. One of these may be selected on environmental or other grounds without losing road user benefits. They go on to explore and demonstrate the issues associated with the integration of evolutionary computing techniques, transport modelling and cost-benefit analysis to achieve an optimal road investment timetable.

Demonstrating the application of evolutionary computing techniques to an exceptionally complex problem in the real business world, Cost-Benefit Analysis and Evolutionary Computing will be of great value to academics and those practitioners and researchers interested in addressing the classic issue of evaluating road expansion and maintenance programs.

The late John H.E. Taplin, formerly Professor of Information Management and Transport, University of Western Australia, Min Qiu, Senior Lecturer, University of Western Australia, Vivian K. Salim, formerly Research Scientist, Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia and Renlong Han, Research and Development Officer in Traffic Modelling, Main Roads Western Australia