Research Article

Combination of mobile agent and evolutionary algorithm to optimize the client transport services

Hayfa Zgaya^a1, Slim Hammadi^a1 and Khaled Ghédira^a2

LAGIS UMR 8146 École Centrale de Lille, France; hayfa.zgaya@ec-lille.fr; slim.hammadi@ec-lille.fr

SOIE, ISG-Tunis ISG, Tunis University, Tunisia; khaled.ghedira@isg.rnu.tn

Abstract

This paper presents a migration strategy for a set of mobile agents (MAs) in order to satisfy customers' requests in a transport network, through a multimodal information system. In this context, we propose an optimization solution which operates on two levels. The first one aims to constitute a set of MAs building their routes, called Workplans. At this level, Workplans must incorporate all nodes, representing information providers in the multimodal network, in order to explore it completely. Thanks to an evolutionary approach, the second level must optimize nodes selection in order to increase the number of satisfied users. The assignment of network nodes to the required services must be followed by a Workplan update procedure in order to deduce final routes paths. Finally, simulation results are mentioned to invoke the different steps of our adopted approach.

(Received October 30 2006)

(Accepted October 12 2007)

(Online publication February 21 2008)

Key Words:

• Mobile agents;
• evolutionary algorithms;
• multimodal information system;
• multimodal transport network

Mathematics Subject Classification:

• 90B06;
• 90C29;
• 68M14;
• 68T20;
• 68U35