OptiRoutS

Routing services lack a systemic view on costs for society

Public road authorities have a growing concern about the negative impact of in-car routing services on their goal to ensure a smooth, safe and sustainable mobility.

These routing services typically only consider the cost for an individual vehicle. However, they fail to include the social and environmental costs inherent in the use of the road network. As a result, they create traffic conditions that are not optimal, such as cut-through traffic or severe congestions, possibly on roads not equipped to accommodate dense through-traffic.

A possible solution is a public-private ecosystem that provides interactive in-car traffic management aimed at alleviating these concerns.

A new ecosystem for better guidance

OptiRoutS aims to prepare and demonstrate such a new ecosystem of in-car traffic management that proactively contributes to meeting a broad set of mobility goals.

The new route guidance is meant to enhance current routing systems. It will guide individual users along more prosocial routes using effective reward schemes to influence them.   

The project partners see a strong demand for such routing services, which take into account concerns about the impact of traffic and traffic routing on congestion, safety and the environment.

An interactive, prosocial routing

The challenges that will be addressed by OptiRoutS are fourfold. First, there is a need for a precise quantification of the societal costs of traffic in a road network, as opposed to costs only borne by the individual user. Second, the partners will investigate how an optimal, interactive routing advice may be implemented. This advice will take the societal costs into account, in addition to the travel time, which remains a crucial factor as in the traditional route guidance services. Third, the project will develop an altruistic reward scheme that will align private and public needs, and that will nudge road users to choose prosocial routing. Last, the partners will design a blueprint for how to bring private and public stakeholders together to create a sustainable governance model, reconciling public, individual and business interest, and unlocking long-term societal value.

“The OptiRoutS project reconciles the individual interests of traffic participants with sustainable, society-wide goals to arrive at a new and effective traffic routing system.”