Evaluation of Metro Lines with Swarm Intelligence Approach

Metro lines, which have become one of the most important transportation routes for today's cities, require long design and implementation processes. Their design load is mostly due to detailed engineering calculations, have to expand to meet the needs of the ever-increasing population. The behavior of slime moulds to find the shortest path they use to reach the food source has inspired models created specifically to test the accuracy of highway routes. The hypothesis of this study is that the swarm behavior of slime moulds and the routes they follow may produce the same or similar results as the existing metro lines. In this research, an answer was sought to the question of whether a metro line designed with an approach based on swarm intelligence could be compatible with the existing line. The paper aims to develop a model that guides the design processes of metro lines by using swarm intelligence and shortest path finding strategies of slime moulds in a computational model. In the model, slime moulds were represented by multi-agent systems. The metro route was produced by the model using the station locations on an existing metro line selected as the study area. The agent-based simulation model was developed in the Grasshopper Physarealm plug-in environment. In the first stage of the model, a numerical model was created using the data and parameters of an existing metro line. In the second stage, the simulation was carried out to create a new route by preserving only the station locations of the existing metro line. Finally, the existing metro route and the route developed with the simulation model based on the intelligent agent behaviour in the digital environment were compared by overlapping. The results show that the route created by slime moulds only to reach the food is almost the same as the currently designed metro line. Topography data is ignored in the model. It is seen that the model developed by using metro design criteria is an important decision support aid for designers in determining metro routes.