Routing Guidance for Emerging Transportation Systems with Improved Dynamic Trip Equity

Abstract

This paper presents a dynamic routing guidance system that optimizes route recommendations for individual vehicles in an emerging transportation system while enhancing travelers' trip equity. We develop a framework to quantify trip quality and equity in dynamic travel environments, providing new insights into how routing guidance influences equity in road transportation. Our approach enables real-time routing by incorporating both monitored and anticipated traffic congestion. We provide conditions that ensure perfect trip equity for all travelers in a free-flow network. Simulation studies on 1,000 vehicles traversing an urban road network in Boston demonstrate that our method improves trip equity by approximately 11.4\% compared to the shortest-route strategy. In addition, the results reveal that our approach redistributes travel costs across vehicle types through route optimization, contributing to a more equitable transportation system.