Preference Information Incorporation for Decision Making in the Biobjective Alignment Optimization Problem of River-Crossing Tunnels

Abstract

For a specific multiobjective tunnel alignment design problem, engineers have difficulty finding a suitable solution to satisfy a set of preference criteria. This paper presents a biobjective optimization approach incorporating the preference information to the search process interactively, which can greatly accelerate this process and guide the search to the relevant Pareto region. Safety performance and construction cost are cast in the model as two conflicting objective functions. Moreover, a case study in Shanghai, China that applied the biobjective optimization model was conducted to demonstrate the capability of our new approach compared with traditional alignment design models. The results indicated that the incorporation of preference could not only provide a more qualified solution set than traditional alignment optimization models, but also save computation time as well as the engineers’ workload to compare and select alternative solutions.