Sensitivity Analysis of Simulated Annealing for Continuous Network Design Problems

In this paper, parameters choices of simulated annealing for continuous network design problems are discussed. A bi-level programming model for continuous network design problem is introduced. Objective function of the upper level is defined as the sum of the total travel time on the network and the total investment costs of link capacity expansions. The lower level problem is the user equilibrium assignment model, which is solved by the Gradient projection algorithm. Sensitivity analysis method is the first time used to analyze and compare the influence of the different selection of parameters to the implementation of simulated annealing algorithm. Suggestions of parameter selection are also given. Analysis demonstrates that the efficiency and precision of these methods can be improved clearly with the proposed suggestions.