Mathematical modeling and solving a hub location-allocation problem in Iranian airports

The use of hub-networks leads to decrease in costs and transfer time and consequently increase the system efficiency. Transport and logistic fields, communicative and technological networks are some applications of hub location-allocation. Regarding the vast Iran’s airspace, a hub location-allocation approach can be used to determine airport hubs in Iran to decrease transportation costs and optimize the system reliability. At first, a bi-objective model is introduced to minimize the costs and maximize the reliability. Thus, using of meta-heuristic algorithms to solve the multi-objective problem is inevitable. Then, a differential evolution algorithm is used to solve the presented model. To investigate the implementation of the proposed algorithm, the obtained results are compared with the obtained results of the ε-constraint method in a small-sized problem. The results show a low percentage error and gap. Then, the proposed algorithm is used to find the best hubs location for 15 international and important airports in the Iran Aviation Network. Finally, the obtained results show that Shiraz and Imam Khomeini airports are chosen as hub locations more than the other airports. Mehrabad and Mashhad airports stand on the next positions.