Distributed/Parallel Genetic Algorithm for Road Traffic Network Division using a Hybrid Island Model/Step Parallelization Approach

n this paper, a hybrid approach for the parallelization of a genetic algorithm for a distributed/parallel computing environment is described. The genetic algorithm is the main part of the method for the division of road traffic networks for distributed road traffic simulations. The hybrid approach is based on the commonly used island model for the parallelization of genetic algorithms and the parallelization of individual steps of genetic algorithms. The island model is used among the processes residing on different nodes of the distributed/parallel computer. The step parallelization is used among the threads of a single process. The thorough tests of the hybrid approach investigating its speedup and the achieved road traffic network division were performed. Their description and results are also part of this paper.