A multi-objective analysis of a rural road network problem in the hilly regions of Nepal

Shrestha, Jagat Kumar; Benta, Agostinho; Lopes, Rui Borges; Lopes, Nuno

doi:10.1016/j.tra.2014.03.005

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Similarly, Shrestha (2018) presented a multi-objective decision support model for rural road networks that suggests road network links for improvement or new construction. Using a similar approach to Shrestha et al (2014) and with the objectives minimizing four population-and distance-based criteria, optimal trade-off solutions were approximated at different budget levels.…”

Section: Optimization Approaches To (Rural) Transport Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Heuristics are considered because they are easily compatible with rural roads planning (Ma et al, 2014;Scaparra and Church, 2005;Kumar and Kumar, 1999) and can obtain numerous well-performing solutions within reasonable computation times when the complexity of the problem is too overwhelming for traditional methods. An integer-linear programming (ILP) approach is the second method that we implement, because it provides a simpler way to solve optimization problems compared to our heuristic approach and has been used in rural roads planning before (Murawski and Church, 2009;Shrestha et al, 2014;Shrestha, 2018). An ILP approach is, however, more sensitive to computational complexity and the size of problems which it can solve, and returns fewer solutions when compared to a heuristic approach -resulting in less data and less insightful solution-analyses.…”

Section: Optimization Approaches To (Rural) Transport Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This weighted-sum method provides a simple way to solve MO optimization problems, since the mathematical formulations are relatively simple to provide as input compared to the sophisticated code and multiple parameters and sensitivity tests that are required for heuristics. Due to its accessibility and historical prominence the weighted-sum approach remains a popular choice to solve MO optimization problems from various recent applications, such as building design (Machairas et al, 2014), carpool matching (Xia et al, 2019), and land-use allocation (Yao et al, 2018), and has also been used for rural roads planning research (Shrestha et al, 2014;Shrestha, 2018). A popular ILP alternative to the weighted-sum approach is the ǫ-constraint method (Mavrotas, 2009;Mavrotas and Florios, 2013), which has been shown to be capable of obtaining superior solution spread along the Pareto front approximation in certain problem instances Amin and Zhang (2013).…”

Section: [H]mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Roads Development Optimization for All-Season Service Accessibility Improvement in Rural Nepal using a Novel Cost-Time Model and Evolutionary Algorithm

Heyns¹,

Banick²,

Regmi³

2021

Policy Research Working Papers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

show abstract

Section: Optimization Approaches To (Rural) Transport Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Optimization Approaches To (Rural) Transport Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: [H]mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Roads Development Optimization for All-Season Service Accessibility Improvement in Rural Nepal using a Novel Cost-Time Model and Evolutionary Algorithm

Heyns¹,

Banick²,

Regmi³

2021

Policy Research Working Papers

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In accordance, several studies have proposed and investigated the impacts of new data collection methodologies, techniques, platforms, and tools, with the objectives of reducing cost, requiring less time, effort, and professional skill, and providing policymakers with critical information. Proposed ideas have included GIS applications, adaptations to climate change, network analyses, smartphone applications developed for cross-referencing field data, satellite imagery, traffic data, interviews, and asset management, which have been researched, analyzed, and piloted across a host of contexts [57,60,[63][64][65]74,273]. Namely, a Mozambican case study developed a methodology to prioritize rural transportation investments amidst uncertainty from climate change related disasters by utilizing geospatial data coupled with multidimensional cost-benefit analyses, resulting in low-budget and resilient improvements to the network [63].…”

Section: Innovations and Advanced Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rural Transportation Infrastructure in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Review of Impacts, Implications, and Interventions

Kaiser

Barstow

2022

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The rural transport infrastructure sector is a critical force for sustainable development that is interwoven with many other sectors. Rural transportation is an underlying driver of many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a crucial contributor to many socioeconomic benefits for rural people around the world. This review paper expands upon, enhances, and cross-references the perspectives outlined in previous rural infrastructure-focused review papers. Firstly, this work gives a thorough look into the progress of the rural transportation sector in recent years by focusing on the thematic relationships between infrastructure and other components of sustainable development, namely, economics and agriculture, policy and governance, health, gender, education, and climate change and the environment. Secondly, several strategies, approaches, and tools employed by governments and practitioners within the rural transport sector are analyzed and discussed for their contributions to the wellbeing of rural dwellers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These include rural roads, bridges, maintenance, and non-infrastructural approaches that include concepts such as advanced technological innovations, intermediate modes of transport (IMTs), and transport services. This paper concludes that enhancement, improvement, and extension of rural transportation infrastructure brings significant benefits to rural dwellers. However, this paper also calls for additional integration of the sector and increased usage of systems approaches that view rural transport as an active part of many other sectors and a key leverage point within rural development as a whole. Further, this paper notes areas for future research and investigation, including increased investigation of the relationship between rural transportation infrastructure and education, improved data collection and management in support of improved policymaking, improved prioritization of interventions and institutionalization of maintenance, and expansion of pro-poor transportation strategies and interventions.

show abstract

“…The optimisation of rural roads development using such solution approaches presents a unique and understudied challenge, since the traditional focus is to identify the most productive subsets of roads designed for urban, relatively developed settings-likely to underperform in rural, sparsely populated settings (Shrestha 2018). In recent times, however, research into optimisation approaches for rural roads development has received more attention (Shrestha et al 2014;Kumar and Jain 2000;Scaparra and Church 2005;Murawski and Church 2009;Shrestha 2018)-yet exhibiting two key limitations. First, while accessibility models that are more suitable for use in rural settings exist, they have not been capitalised on by the rural roads optimisation literature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimisation of rural roads planning based on multi-modal travel: a multi-service accessibility study in Nepal’s remote Karnali Province

Heyns

Banick²

2022

Transportation

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The traditional aim in transportation planning is to maximise gains associated with vehicular travel distances or times, indirectly prioritising populations that live near existing or proposed roads—remote populations that first require hours of walking to reach roads are overlooked. In this paper, rural roads optimisation is performed using a new model that estimates proposed roads’ accessibility gains, considering reductions in vehicular travel time and reductions in walking time required by remote populations to reach them. This ensures that even the most remote populations that may benefit from new roads are included in their evaluation. When presented with a large number of proposed roads and the requirement of determining a plan within a suitable budget, it is often infeasible to construct all proposed roads. In such instances, subsets of well-performing road-combinations that are evaluated with respect to multiple objectives need to be identified for analysis and comparison–for which multi-objective optimisation approaches can be employed. Traditional optimisation approaches return a small number of road-combination plans only, limited to user-specified budget levels and objective weight sets. This paper presents an innovative heuristic solution approach that overcomes such limitations by returning thousands of well-performing solutions scattered across a budget span, and not limited in number to user-specified objective weight sets at fixed budget levels. The heuristic is employed along with a more traditional weighted-sum integer-linear programming approach to determine high-quality road-combination plans selected from 92 roads recently proposed for construction in Nepal’s remote Karnali province. Using these two approaches with inputs from the new multi-modal accessibility model, it is illustrated how rural roads planning can be performed to the benefit of rural populations regardless of their proximity to roads. New planning and analysis benefits of the heuristic are demonstrated by comparing its solutions to those determined by the weighted-sum approach, providing a level of detail and sophistication not previously possible for rural roads planning and analysis.

show abstract

A multi-objective analysis of a rural road network problem in the hilly regions of Nepal

Cited by 14 publications

References 16 publications

Roads Development Optimization for All-Season Service Accessibility Improvement in Rural Nepal using a Novel Cost-Time Model and Evolutionary Algorithm

Roads Development Optimization for All-Season Service Accessibility Improvement in Rural Nepal using a Novel Cost-Time Model and Evolutionary Algorithm

Rural Transportation Infrastructure in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Review of Impacts, Implications, and Interventions

Optimisation of rural roads planning based on multi-modal travel: a multi-service accessibility study in Nepal’s remote Karnali Province

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About