One-shot traffic assignment with forward-looking penalization

Traffic assignment (TA) is crucial in optimizing transportation systems and consists in efficiently assigning routes to a collection of trips. Existing TA algorithms often do not adequately consider realtime traffic conditions, resulting in inefficient route assignments. This paper introduces Metis, a coordinated, one-shot TA algorithm that combines alternative routing with edge penalization and informed route scoring. We conduct experiments in several cities to evaluate the performance of Metis against state-of-the-art oneshot methods. Compared to the best baseline, Metis significantly reduces CO2 emissions by 18% in Milan, 28% in Florence, and 46% in Rome, improving trip distribution considerably while still having low computational time. Our study proposes Metis as a promising solution for optimizing TA and urban transportation systems.