Abstract
For the purpose of decreasing economic loss from the traffic jam, a car route guidance system efficiently utilizing the existing roads has attracted a great deal of attention. In this paper, the search algorithm for optimal path and alternative paths, which is the main function of a car route guidance system, was presented using evolution program. Search efficiency was promoted by changing the population size of path individuals in each generation, applying the concept of age and lifetime to path individuals. Through simulation on the virtual road-traffic network consisting of 100 nodes with various turn constraints and traffic volumes, not only the optimal path with the minimal cost was obtained, avoiding turn constraints and traffic congestion, but also alternative paths with similar costs and acceptable difference was acquired, compared with optimal path.