title: Local Optimization Strategies in Urban Vehicular Mobility.
abstract: The comprehension of vehicular traffic in urban environments is crucial to achieve a good management of the complex processes arising from people collective motion. Even allowing for the great complexity of human beings, human behavior turns out to be subject to strong constraints--physical, environmental, social, economic--that induce the emergence of common patterns. The observation and understanding of those patterns is key to setup effective strategies to optimize the quality of life in cities while not frustrating the natural need for mobility. In this paper we focus on vehicular mobility with the aim to reveal the underlying patterns and uncover the human strategies determining them. To this end we analyze a large dataset of GPS vehicles tracks collected in the Rome (Italy) district during a month. We demonstrate the existence of a local optimization of travel times that vehicle drivers perform while choosing their journey. This finding is mirrored by two additional important facts, i.e., the observation that the average vehicle velocity increases by increasing the travel length and the emergence of a universal scaling law for the distribution of travel times at fixed traveled length. A simple modeling scheme confirms this scenario opening the way to further predictions.
authors.affiliation: ENEA, Casaccia Research Center, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123, Rome, Italy.|Sapienza University of Rome, Physics Dept., P.le Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Pierpaolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mastroianni
authors.affiliation: Sapienza University of Rome, Physics Dept., P.le Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Bernardo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Monechi
authors.affiliation: ENEA, Casaccia Research Center, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liberto
authors.affiliation: ENEA, Casaccia Research Center, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Gaetano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Valenti
authors.affiliation: Sapienza University of Rome, Physics Dept., P.le Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy.|Institute for Complex Systems (ISC-CNR), Via dei Taurini 19, 00185 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Vito D P
authors.initials: VD
authors.lastname: Servedio
authors.affiliation: Sapienza University of Rome, Physics Dept., P.le Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy.|Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation, Via Alassio 11/c, 10126, Turin, Italy.|SONY-CSL, 6, Rue Amyot, 75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Vittorio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Loreto
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D001336:Automobiles / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002947:Cities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011788:Quality of Life; D012384:Rome; D014186:Transportation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001335:Vehicle Emissions / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D001335:Vehicle Emissions