Multi-port investment option problem with safe path setting.

In this paper, the unique characteristics of West Africa was addressed. The game relationship between the owner and the port operator, and the relationship among the hub ports as well as the geography risk in West Africa were all considered. Accordingly, based on the principle of equilibrium, a mixed-integer model was established. The model could collaboratively optimize the hub port investment program (including the selection of investment targets, the amount of investment ports, and the investment quota) as well as the inland safe path setting scheme. The objective of this model was to minimize the regional integrated transportation costs. A genetic Frank-Wolf hybrid algorithm was proposed based on genetic algorithm to solve this model. The results show that the selection of investment targets in hub ports, the amount of investment ports, and the investment quota concerning security risks can be optimized by the proposed model, which can also simultaneously improve the corresponding inland safe path network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]