M. Eghbali - University of K.N.Toosi
M. Abedzadeh
M. Setak

When the cost of the links between hub facilities in hub location problem is very high, complete hub network is so costly or because of properties of some networks (e.g. telecommunication networks), there is no need of complete connection between hubs. Since all the flows in the network must be sent through the hubs, a path must exist between each pair of hubs; a connected graph must be built. But due to the high cost of the connections, connectivity must be achieved using the minimum number of links. This paper by considering network design approach, presents a multi-objective multiple allocation hub covering location problem, which is connecting hubs by means of a tree. Trees are connected graphs without cycles that have a wide application in minimal connector problems. Moreover, this paper presents a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II),which its parameters are tuned by response surface methodology (RSM), to find near optimal pareto solutions for the given problem. The reliability of the proposed algorithm, based on three evaluation metrics, is determined. Computational results of Turkish dataset are presented for better illustration of proposed model.

Hub covering location; Tree hub network; Network design; NSGA-II multi-objective algorithm; Response surface methdology)