Designing an ecologically optimized road corridor surrounding restricted urban areas: a mathematical methodology

Abstract

The use of optimization techniques for the optimal design of roads and railways has increased in recent years. The environmental impact of a layout is usually given in terms of the land use where it runs (avoiding some ecologically protected areas), without taking into account air pollution (in these or other sensitive areas) due to vehicular traffic on the road. This work addresses this issue and proposes an automatic method for obtaining a specific corridor (optimal in terms of air pollution), where the economically optimized road must be designed in a later stage. Combining a 1D traffic simulation model with a 2D air pollution model, and using classical techniques for optimal control of partial differential equations, the problem is formulated and solved in the framework of Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming. The usefulness of this approach is shown in a real case study posed in a region that suffers from serious episodes of environmental pollution, the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (México)