Eco-friendly reduction of travel times in european smart cities

This article proposes an innovative solution for reducing polluting gas emissions from road traffic in modern cities. It is based on our new Red Swarm architecture which is composed of a series of intelligent spots with WiFi connections that can suggest a customized route to drivers. We have tested our proposal in four different case studies corresponding to actual European smart cities. To this end, we first import the city information from OpenStreetMap into the SUMO road traffic micro-simulator, propose a Red Swarm architecture based on intelligent spots located at traffic lights, and then optimize the resulting system in terms of travel times and gas emissions by using an evolutionary algorithm. Our results show that an important quantitative reduction in gas emissions as well as in travel times can be achieved when vehicles are rerouted according to our Red Swarm indications. This represents a promising result for the low cost implementation of an idea that could engage the interest of both citizens and municipal authorities.