Towards a better management of urban traffic pollution using a Pareto max flow approach

• Published in: Transportation research. Part D, Transport and environment Vol. 79; p. 102194
• Main Authors: Kamishetty, Sreeja, Vadlamannati, Soumya, Paruchuri, Praveen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2020
• Subjects: Distribution of traffic; k-optimality; Max Flow; Pareto solutions; Pollution management; Transportation policy; Pollution management; Pareto solutions; k-optimality; Max Flow; Distribution of traffic; Transportation policy
• ISSN: 1361-9209; 1879-2340
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2019.11.023

•Continuous exposure to high levels of pollution have adverse effects on human health.•In this work, we build an algorithm for better management of urban traffic pollution.•We develop a Pareto-optimal Max Flow Algorithm (PMFA) to suggest multiple max flow solutions.•Extending PMFA we introduce Pareto k-optimal Max Flow Algorithm (k-PMFA) to ensure that the suggested pareto solutions are sufficiently distinct.•Through SUMO experiments, we show that our solution distributes traffic more evenly across the city. Rising levels of air pollution is a major concern across many parts of the world. In this article, we develop a transportation policy to handle air pollution caused by the heavy flow of traffic in urban areas. In particular, we aim to distribute the traffic flow more evenly through a city, by developing a flow algorithm that computes multiple solutions, each of which accommodates the maximum flow. The paper makes the following contributions to build such a transportation policy: (a) Develops a Pareto-optimal Max Flow Algorithm (PMFA) to suggest multiple max flow solutions. (b) Introduces the notion of k-optimality into PMFA to ensure that the suggested pareto solutions are sufficiently distinct from each other – referred to as Pareto-k-optimal Max Flow Algorithm (k-PMFA). (c) Through a series of experiments performed using the well-known traffic simulator SUMO and by doing emission modeling on the New York map, we could show that our policy distributes the air pollution more uniformly across locations.