In 2003, I wrote a neat and powerful piece of software called Galapagos for my 4th-year undergraduate thesis (download PDF). It was a framework for the development of advanced (i.e. distributed, parallel and/or hybrid) evolutionary algorithms, applicable to a wide range of computational challenging optimization problems. I applied it to a variety of transportation-related problems at the University of Toronto.

This work was written up in a couple of papers for the Transportation Research Board:

• Roorda, M. J., Miller, E. J., & Kruchten, N. J. (2006). Incorporating Within-Household Interactions into Mode Choice Model with Genetic Algorithm for Parameter Estimation. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1985, TRB, Washington DC, pp.171-179. doi: 10.3141/1985-19. (download PDF)
• Abdulhai, B., Kruchten, N. J., & de Koning, D. (2004). Galapagos: Development Platform for Distributed Parallel Genetic Algorithms for Computationally Demanding ITS Optimization Problems. Paper presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Washington, DC. (download PDF)

I also made a couple of presentations about it in the Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab: Presentation 1, Presentation 2

I'm happy to be able to now share this software under an open-source license!

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