Using an Evolutionary Algorithm to Discover Low CO2 Tours within a Travelling Salesman Problem.

This paper examines the issues surrounding the effects of using vehicle emissions as the fitness criteria when solving routing problems using evolutionary techniques. The case-study examined is that of the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) based upon the road network within the City of Edinburgh, Scotland. A low cost path finding algorithm (A*) is used to build paths through the street network between delivery points. The EA is used to discover tours that utilise paths with low emissions characteristics. Two methods of estimating CO₂ emissions are examined; one that utilises a fuel consumption model and applies it to an estimated drive cycle and one that applies a simplistic CO₂ calculation model that focuses on average speeds over street sections. The results of these two metrics are compared with each other and with results obtained using a traditional distance metric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]