Optimal networks for mass transportation problems

Abstract

In the framework of transport theory, we are interested in the following optimization problem: given the distributions μ+ of working people and μ− of their working places in an urban area, build a transportation network (such as a railway or an underground system) which minimizes a functional depending on the geometry of the network through a particular cost function. The functional is defined as the Wasserstein distance of μ+ from μ− with respect to a metric which depends on the transportation network. © 2005 EDP Sciences, SMAI.