An improved ant colony optimization algorithm based on context for tourism route planning

PLoS One. 2021 Sep 16;16(9):e0257317. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257317. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

To solve the problem of one-sided pursuit of the shortest distance but ignoring the tourist experience in the process of tourism route planning, an improved ant colony optimization algorithm is proposed for tourism route planning. Contextual information of scenic spots significantly effect people's choice of tourism destination, so the pheromone update strategy is combined with the contextual information such as weather and comfort degree of the scenic spot in the process of searching the global optimal route, so that the pheromone update tends to the path suitable for tourists. At the same time, in order to avoid falling into local optimization, the sub-path support degree is introduced. The experimental results show that the optimized tourism route has greatly improved the tourist experience, the route distance is shortened by 20.5% and the convergence speed is increased by 21.2% compared with the basic algorithm, which proves that the improved algorithm is notably effective.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Animals
  • Ants / physiology*
  • Behavior, Animal
  • China
  • Computer Simulation
  • Humans
  • Internet
  • Mobile Applications*
  • Models, Statistical
  • Movement
  • Pheromones
  • Tourism*

Substances

  • Pheromones

Grants and funding

Author: Liang Shengbin Grant number: No.20A520008 Funder: Key Scientific Research Projects of Colleges and Universities in Henan Province URL: http://jyt.henan.gov.cn/2019/07-31/1604951.html Did the sponsors or funders play any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript? No.