Highway Route Optimization Based on Accessibility, Proximity, and Land-Use Changes

Accessibility, proximity, and land-use changes over time are important considerations in highway route selection. Highway users while benefiting from living closer to highways also pay a price for living close to them due to increased noise and pollution. Although noise and air pollution considerations have long been emphasized in land-use planning, their relative impacts in selecting a highway route are not fully understood. This research is motivated by a recent Federal Highway Administration initiative in which a national workshop involving participation from Departments of Transportation is proposed to understand current practices of including noise and air pollution in land-use planning. Formulations for accessibility, proximity, and land-use changes are developed and incorporated into a previously developed highway alignment optimization model by our research team. An example problem is presented to check the sensitivity of alignments to accessibility, proximity, and land-use change. The results indicate that accessibility, proximity, and land-use changes can greatly influence the selection of highway routes.