Emergence of spatial transitions in urban congestion dynamics Articles uri icon

authors

  • LAMPO, ANIELLO
  • BORGE HOLTHOEFER, JAVIER
  • GOMÉZ, SERGIO
  • SOLÉ RIBALTA, ALBERT

publication date

  • June 2021

volume

  • 6; 41

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 2364-8228

abstract

  • The quantitative study of trafc dynamics is crucial to ensure the efciency of urban
    transportation networks. The current work investigates the spatial properties of
    congestion, that is, we aim to characterize the city areas where trafc bottlenecks
    occur. The analysis of a large amount of real road networks in previous works showed
    that congestion points experience spatial abrupt transitions, namely they shift away
    from the city center as larger urban areas are incorporated. The fundamental ingredi‑
    ent behind this efect is the entanglement of central and arterial roads, embedded in
    separated geographical regions. In this paper we extend the analysis of the conditions
    yielding abrupt transitions of congestion location. First, we look into the more realistic
    situation in which arterial and central roads, rather than lying on sharply separated
    regions, present spatial overlap. It results that this afects the position of bottlenecks
    and introduces new possible congestion areas. Secondly, we pay particular attention to
    the role played by the edge distribution, proving that it allows to smooth the transi‑
    tions profle, and so to control the congestion displacement. Finally, we show that
    the aforementioned phenomenology may be recovered also as a consequence of a
    discontinuity in the node"s density, in a domain with uniform connectivity. Our results
    provide useful insights for the design and optimization of urban road networks, and
    the management of the daily traffic.

keywords

  • urban systems; road networks; congestion; phase transitions