The influence of air pollution in the selection of healthy routes forwalking an...

• Author(s): Ribeiro, Paulo ; Mendes, José F. G.
• Date: 2012
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/23473
• Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
• Subject(s): Healthy routes; Walking; Cycling; Air pollution; Active modes
• Document Type: Conference Object
• Language: English

Description

In this paper, a model for generation of alternative routes for walking and cycling will be presented, taking into account the impact of environmental noise and air pollution in urban areas. The main objective resides in the reduction of the exposure level and risk of development of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Depending on the type of optimization criteria, the output of the model could be the least noisy, the least air-polluted or the healthiest route. The formulation of the model to generate healthy routes is initiated with the generation of pollution maps, followed by the contamination of the walking and cycling network and finally outputs the generated different types of healthy routes. An application of the overall model will be presented in a case study example developed for a central area of the city of Braga, in northern Portugal, with special focus on the influence of air pollution in the selection of healthy routes in urban environments.