Summary

This project addresses the development of models, simulation tools and urban traffic management system design methodologies that contribute to the reduction of polluting emissions generated by urban means of transport.
It is important to note that the project faces the development of models from three points of view:
- Modeling of emissions discriminated by type of vehicles (cars, buses, motorcycles, articulated including capacities)
- The modeling of the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere and their transport or concentration in different points of the metropolitan area
- The evaluation of possible performance improvements of the microscopic and mesoscopic models of emissions, dispersion, and traffic.
The development of simulation tools faces three challenges:
- The integration of emission and topography models
- The development of parallel platforms that allow the efficient simulation of scenarios.

In terms of decision making for traffic management, the project investigates two aspects:
- The criteria for adequate multimodal traffic management using multiobjective cost functions including emission reduction, waiting times, maximization of the mobility of individuals, maximization of vehicle mobility, etc.
- The validation of hierarchical and distributed methods for the management of large networks
In order to give maximum realism and applicability to the study, the city of Medellín-Colombia has been chosen as a "test bench" and validation model, since the city offers two advantages: Its size is that of a large city and the diversity of means of locomotion.

Objectives

General objective:

To develop and validate methods and tools based on numerical models and decision-making mechanisms based on optimization that reduce vehicle emissions by efficiently managing urban traffic, reducing travel times and waiting times applied to the case of Medellín - the Aburrá valley metropolitan area.

Specific objectives:

• To validate and refine vehicle emission models.
• To validate and refine mechanisms of assimilation of simulated information of emissions to atmospheric models
• To improve the integration mechanisms of various information systems to streamline the creation of simulation scenarios integrating flow data, traffic type and emissions.
• To develop tools that allow simulating in multiple machines and in a parallel and interconnected way complex networks and complete corridors of the city including emissions and dispersion of the same.
• To develop methods to simplify the results of the microscopic simulation to develop agile simulation methods for the design of automatic decision-making systems.
• To validate methods of hierarchical and distributed control of traffic in extensive networks with decisions aimed at reducing emissions.
• To refine the multi-objective criteria of traffic management including (reduction of emissions, waiting times, maximization of mobility of individuals, maximization of vehicle mobility, etc.)