AbstractIn recent years, numerous researchers examined and analyzed several different types of uncertainty in shortest path (SP) problems. However, those SP problems in which the costs of arcs are expressed in terms of mixed interval-valued fuzzy numbers are less addressed. Here, for solving such uncertain SP problems, first a new procedure is extended to approximate the summation of mixed interval-valued fuzzy numbers using alpha cuts. Then, an extended distance function is introduced for comparing the path weights. Finally, we intend to use a modified artificial bee colony (MABC) algorithm to find the interval-valued membership function of SP in such mixed interval-valued fuzzy network. The proposed algorithm is illustrated via two applications of SP problems in wireless sensor networks and then the results are compared with those derived from genetic and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms, based on three indexes convergence iteration, convergence time and run time. The obtained results confirm that the MABC algorithm has less convergence iteration, convergence time and implementation time compared to GA and PSO algorithm.