Surge tanks and air chambers are the most useful solution to deal with water hammer in water transmission systems (WTS). The optimal design of these protective devices can be effective in reducing the costs of constructing and operating a water transmission system. In this article, some software with the capability of simulating and optimizing these protective equipment is presented. To simulate the behavior of the system in the transient condition, the characteristic method was used. To optimize the number, dimensions and location of the surge tanks and air chambers, the genetic algorithm was employed. Constraints of the problem included the control of negative and positive pressures within the permissible range to prevent the cavitation and water hammer. To test the performance of simulation and optimization models, a well-known water transmission system in the previous research was selected as a case study. The results indicated that the critical heads were damped to a safer and allowable range; also, the total cost of the surge tanks and air chambers was reduced by 17% by the proposed method.