A novel particle swarm optimization algorithm for solving the shortest path problem in highway network

Aiming at the time-dependent characteristic of the highway network, effective emergency vehicle routing plan is a great significance to emergency rescue. In this paper, a novel particle swarm optimization algorithm is proposed to solve the time-dependent (dynamic) shortest path problem. The algorithm uses a way of adjacency matrix search to generate particle swarm satisfying constrains of the problem during the whole calculation, and puts forward a kind of update rule using the path of the optimal individual as the guidance information to ensure that the vehicle enters a shorter road section at the earlier time. The results of illuminate examples show that the algorithm can quickly and efficiently search the shortest path of emergency vehicles.