An Evolutionary Algorithm for Site Search Problems

The goal of solving a site search problem is to allocate a contiguous set of land parcels such that the total land acquisition cost, or other objectives, are optimized. This article describes the design and implementation of an evolutionary algorithm (EA) that can be used to solve site search problems. In this article, a graph representation is used to define the spatial structure of solutions to the problem. By using this representation, the contiguity of a site is maintained during the initialization, mutation, and local search operations of the EA. The effectiveness of the EA in finding optimal or near-optimal solutions is demonstrated by testing it on a series of problems whose optimal solutions are known.