Incorporating Environmental Justice Metrics into Mobility Network Design Models with Resource Pricing

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Steven Waller, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Traffic and Transport Systems, Intelligent and Automated Traffic
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 545127844

The proposed research aims to develop optimization-based transportation network models that quantify aspects of Environmental Justice (EJ), network design and pricing to support a deeper understanding of the role network planning decisions have on the nuanced distribution of benefits and burdens across the traveling public. Environmental Justice, which is derived from principles of distribute justice and equity, is an increasingly important view to gain a deeper understanding of societal mobility. However, significant methodological research remains necessary to achieve sufficiently quantifiable representation and tractable solution methods related to EJ and transportation network optimization. Further complications include the pre-existing complexity of network design formulations which are already highly computationally expensive. The proposed research builds on the previous work of the researchers in quantifying EJ metrics for transportation networks with proposed novel methodologies for a broader inclusion of equity perspectives within a unified modelling framework. Further, the previous bi-level network design and pricing research of the team is leveraged to support the overall feasibility of the proposed plan. The specific work packages include (1) an assessment of the broad range of equity and EJ considerations (employing a recent framework that explicitly highlights the unit, shape and scope of equity consideration) to determine which combinations are amenable to quantification and therefore optimization (2) the development of a bi-level optimization model to examine network design and pricing which incorporates those metrics identified in WP1 and (3) the evaluation of the approach from WP2 on large networks with a reliance on scalable solution methods where needed. Of particular interest in the research tasks is the examination of the network-level implications of the trade-offs between differing views of equity in addition to efficiency and budgetary considerations. Ultimately, a key aim of the research is to advance the scientific state-of-the-art in terms of methodologies to quantify, optimize and examine the system-level implication of Environmental Justice on transportation network design and optimization.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: China (Hong Kong)
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Sisi Jian, Ph.D.