Optimal networks for mass transportation problems

Brancolini A., Buttazzo G.

Abstract

In the framework of transport theory, we are interested in the following optimization problem: given the distributions μ+ of working people and μ- of their working places in an urban area, build a transportation network (such as a railway or an underground system) which minimizes a functional depending on the geometry of the network through a particular cost function. The functional is defined as the Wasserstein distance of μ+ from μ- with respect to a metric which depends on the transportation network. © EDP Sciences, SMAI 2005.