What are the best routes for us to use for driving home tonight in rush hour traffic?1Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston TX 77204-5005
2Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston TX 77204-5002
We show that the capacity of a complex network that models a city street grid to support congested traffic can be optimized by using routes that collectively minimize the maximum ratio of betweenness to capacity in any link. Networks with a heterogeneous distribution of link capacities and with a heterogeneous transport load are considered. We find that overall traffic congestion and average travel times can be significantly reduced by a judicious use of slower, smaller capacity links.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0902/0902.2415v1.pdf