Flood Evacuation Route Recommendation Using Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

Equipping the society with an evacuation route assistant is important as a preventive action in order to minimize anxiety as well as number of victims when disaster strike. Therefore, research on best route determination to the shelter is a noble task. Evacuation routes mean routes to pass in order to reach the gathering point or shelter safely. This study aims to implement the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm in finding the optimal path to the designated shelter. PSO is a metaheuristic algorithm inspired by the behaviour of flocks of birds or fish to optimize the search for the best route. Taking into account the details of the PSO implementation, including initialization of the random particle position and velocity, selection of the best particle (Pbest) and Global Best (Gbest), and updating the speed and position of the particle using the specified formula. The objective function is recalculated based on the total distance of the particle route as well as the condition weight of the affected areas. The results showed that out of ten experiments with 100 iterations, six valid routes were found with the highest fitness value of 1,935, which indicates that PSO can provide optimal solutions in the context of finding flood evacuation routes.