• Proposed real-time routing framework balances structural risk and network congestion. • Cast the real-time routing problem into a Mixed Integer Linear Programming model. • Validated the system using real-world traffic and structural risk data from Brescia. • Derived an efficient frontier between allowed bridge risk and network congestion. • Coordinated rerouting across multiple bridges manages complex risk interdependencies. In this paper, a real-time system is studied that is aimed at guaranteeing the safety of monitored road structures (e.g., bridges, overpasses, viaducts) and at allowing the control of the trade-off between the risk of disruptions or damages, due to incoming vehicles, and the congestion of the surrounding network. Information on the current level of risk, mainly due to age and traffic, and on the amount of traffic in the surrounding network is assumed to be available. Vehicles that are directed towards each of the monitored structures, and may increase the risk, are assumed to be detected in real-time. We contribute to the design of the system with an optimization model that runs in real-time. The model assigns a path to each of the detected vehicles with the goal of finding a trade-off between the risk of disruptions or damages on the monitored road structures and the congestion level in the surrounding network. Computational experiments, run on data taken from a real case characterized by high density of heavy vehicles, show that the proposed approach is capable of significantly reducing and, possibly, eliminating traffic congestion while keeping the risk of dangerous situations below a user-defined risk threshold.
Morandi et al. (Wed,) studied this question.