Healthy Route Generation and Recommendation
LAZAR PENDOV1, ZHANLIN JI2,3, IVAN GANCHEV1,3,4,*
1Department of Computer Systems,
University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski”,
236 Bulgaria Blvd., Plovdiv 4027,
BULGARIA
2College of Mathematics and Computer Science,
Zhejiang A&F University,
Hangzhou, Zhejiang 311300,
CHINA
3Telecommunications Research Center (TRC),
University of Limerick,
Limerick V94 T9PX,
IRELAND
4Institute of Mathematics and Informatics,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IMIBAS),
Sofia 1040,
BULGARIA
*Corresponding Author
Abstract: - This paper presents the utilization of a developed pilot wireless-based Air Quality Index (AQI)
monitoring system, reporting live geo-grid resolved air quality data, for the purposes of healthy route
generation and recommendation to users. The generated routes are visualized on a map and recommended to
users through a specially developed web-based application, as part of the client tier of the supporting IoT
platform EMULSION. A distributed computing architecture is utilized for the generation of healthy (more
precisely, ‘least air pollution exposure’) routes, performed in near real-time using the dynamic Dijkstra
algorithm, based on the interpolated AQI values. In addition, the fastest and shortest routes for each journey,
requested by a user, are generated as well. The importance of the presented work lies within the practical
applicability of the proposed method for healthy route generation, either as a stand-alone version of the
software application developed for the purpose or integrated into the existing popular navigation systems and
applications alike.
Key-Words: - Internet of Things (IoT); IoT platform; EMULSION; Air Quality Index (AQI); healthy route;
route generation; recommendation to users.
5HFHLYHG0DUFK5HYLVHG6HSWHPEHU$FFHSWHG1RYHPEHU3XEOLVKHG'HFHPEHU
1 Introduction
The existing web-based route planners and real-time
navigation systems, accessed by fixed or mobile
personal devices, allow planning and adjusting
journeys by providing comfort and a sense of safety
to users, [1]. By supplying dynamic and integrated
technological support tools to users, along with
interactive planning and navigation features for
various travel modes, these systems mainly find the
shortest, fastest, or cheapest traveling routes.
However, people (especially urban residents) have
begun to pay more attention to their quality of life
(QoL), by considering environmental factors
affecting their health, such as air quality, and this
has become their new focus when traveling, [2].
Travel schemes with relatively low pollutant
exposure can not only improve human health but
can also benefit social stability and sustained
progress. In contrast, path-based long-distance
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
558
Volume 21, 2024
outdoor activities, surrounded by poor air quality,
have a negative effect on human health, especially
when cycling, running, jogging, or walking, [3].
Therefore, an alternative approach should be taken
in route planning, including health-related
optimization criteria, based on the concept of
“healthy route” (a.k.a. “green route”, “clean route”)
and related concepts of “safe route” and
“sustainable route”, [1].
A common indicator, used in many countries to
measure air pollution, is the Air Quality Index
(AQI), which was developed by the United States
Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), based
on the following six major pollutants: ground-level
ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10),
carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and
nitrogen dioxide (NO2). The US EPA AQI values
run from 0 to 500, divided into six levels of concern,
as shown in Table 1, [4]. The higher the AQI value,
the greater the level of air pollution and the greater
the health concern. The green level (AQI 50)
represents satisfactory air quality, whereby air
pollution poses little or no risk to humans. At the
yellow level (51 AQI 100), the air quality is
acceptable, but there may be a risk for some people,
particularly those who are unusually sensitive to air
pollution. At the orange level (101 AQI 150),
sensitive groups (people with lung diseases, older
people, and children) may experience air-quality-
related health problems, whereas the general public
is less likely to be affected. At the red level (151
AQI 200), part of the general public may
experience health effects, whereas sensitive groups
may experience more serious health effects. The
purple level (201 AQI 300), signifies a health
alert, whereby the risk of health effects is increased
for everyone, and most people may experience
increasingly severe adverse health effects. The
maroon level (AQI 301) represents hazardous air
quality and serves as a health warning of emergency
conditions, so everyone is more likely to be
affected.
The health-driven measurement of air quality
with reasonable geo-grid resolution is in a growing
demand across the world. As the current geo-grid
resolved AQI is informative of environmental
conditions related to personal health, in many
countries, especially in urban areas, there are people
needing to be able to daily check the current AQI
value before going to work or doing outdoor
activities. This can be integrated into mobile apps
and such. To enable millions of simultaneous AQI
requests, a server-side AQI monitoring and
publishing system is required, operating with high
throughput and high availability. It is easy to
visualize such a system, established on a
corresponding Internet of Things (IoT) platform,
e.g., functioning as an integral part of a smart city.
Given the sizeable deployment and maintenance
expense involved, the general public service thrust
is to build a low-resolution AQI geo-grid network,
e.g., with AQI monitoring points a kilometer apart.
Figure 1 shows a sample low-resolution AQI
network, established in Hebei Province (China) with
just 62 AQI monitoring stations. The Chinese
government’s national requirement would be for
around 10,735 AQI monitoring stations deployed in
such an area of 10,735.78 km². Hence there is a
good motivation and market for the development of
low-cost sensor-based AQI monitoring stations.
Table 1. The AQI levels of concern
AQI range
Level of concern
Color
050
good
green
51100
moderate
yellow
101150
unhealthy for sensitive
groups
orange
151200
unhealthy
red
201300
very unhealthy
purple
301500
hazardous
maroon
Fig. 1: The utilized low-resolution AQI network
The AQI monitoring stations in the established
network function as part of the developed pilot AQI
monitoring system, operating on top of the IoT
platform EMULSION [5], which was successfully
implemented and tested. EMULSION is a horizontal
IoT platform of a combined type (hardware and
software), built with low-cost electronics and open-
source software, and consisting of seven tiers. In the
sensor & actuator tier, different types of sensors,
environment monitoring stations, location trackers,
etc., operate to capture the changes occurring in the
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
559
Volume 21, 2024
physical world and send the corresponding
information to the cloud tier through data/remote
transfer units (D/RTUs) and smart communication
gateways, through different wireless access
networks. After analyzing the data sent by the
sensor & actuator tier, the cloud tier makes
appropriate decisions, generates suitable
recommendations for users, and sends the necessary
configuration information and/or commands to the
controllers, actuators, guards, etc., located in the
sensor & actuator tier, for enforcing the required
actions needed for the realization of the imposed
changes in the physical world.
Each AQI monitoring station includes a variety
of pollution sensors connected with an ultra-low-
power geo-grid identified D/RTU. Sensors
communicate periodically (usually every 5 minutes)
with the corresponding D/RTU. Each D/RTU sends
the collected air-quality data, according to the
scheduling algorithm used, to the cloud tier of
EMULSION, which employs a distributed Redis
database, a Hadoop cluster [6], and a web-based
Geographic Information System (GIS) [7]. The
cloud tier provides scaled GUI services for the
mobile and desktop client applications’ requests.
This paper demonstrates the use of the developed
pilot AQI monitoring system for the generation of
healthy routes for outdoor activity planning by
users. The difference between the presented work
with those published in the literature is that most of
the published research suggests a specific
application that does some specific things. In
contrast, we offer here a more generic architecture
that is technology-independent (i.e., w.r.t. hardware,
operating system, programming language) and
distributed in nature (i.e., hosted on multiple
machines), which provides an opportunity for
extending it almost without a limit. A clear
explanation of the healthy route calculation is
provided in the paper, along with a concrete
implementation in the form of a web-based
application, demonstrating the way it works in
reality. The usefulness of the presented study relates
to the possible integration of the proposed method
for healthy route generation into the existing
navigation systems and applications alike.
2 Related Work
In general, there are two primary types of methods
for route cost calculation, [3], i.e., using: (1) static
cost of paths serving as an input to the standard
Dijkstra algorithm [8]; and (2) dynamic cost of
paths, varying over space and time, such as the AQI
value and the travel time which depends on the path
infrastructure’s condition and traffic flow. As more
advanced, multiple methods of the second type have
been proposed, e.g., based on adaptive decision
rules [9], genetic algorithms [10], [11], [12],
probabilistic models [13], uncertainty [14], etc.
Previous studies on “healthy route” generation
can be divided into two main groups [2], i.e., using:
(1) monitoring stations to measure pollutant
exposure on various types of roads, followed by
classification of roads as healthy or unhealthy, based
on the exposure levels; and (2) pollution distribution
data obtained by different means, e.g., by a land use
regression (LUR) [15], [16], an operational street
pollution model (OSPM) [17], an interpolation
method, [3], [18], etc., as an input to the (dynamic)
Dijkstra algorithm for generating healthy routes
[19], using different indicators (traffic volume, AQI,
potential pollutant dose taken, etc.) as road network
weights. If taking full advantage of modern
pollutant retrieval technologies, the trustworthiness
of the generated healthy routes could be
significantly increased. For this, [2] proposes a
short-distance healthy route planning approach,
utilizing fine spatial resolution images, and
meteorological and socioeconomic data to retrieve
the spatial distribution of PM2.5 concentration in
hourly intervals via a back-propagation neural
network. The effectiveness of the approach is
verified by comparing the PM2.5 potential dose
reduction rate between the generated healthy route
and the shortest route, reaching up to 20% reduction
in some cases. As an important factor affecting the
AQI values, PM2.5 concentration can be used also
to predict the AQI, [3].
By utilizing an interpolation method from the
second group, the current paper is focused on the
‘least air pollution exposureaspect of the “healthy
route”, computed in near real-time by applying the
dynamic Dijkstra algorithm, whereby the potential
exposure rate is calculated based on the AQI values,
whereby the desired values of the main air
pollutants (PM2.5, PM10, O3, CO, SO2, NO2) serve
as upper boundaries for reducing the number of
possible routes.
3 Utilized Data
3.1 Permanent Data
This type of data rarely or never changes. The open
data of the OpenStreetMap [20] are used as map
data for the study area, shown in Figure 1. This is a
rectangular area enclosed between the GPS
coordinates (36.846000/114.345000) and
(37.655772/115.684369) with a total coverage of
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
560
Volume 21, 2024
10735.78 km², which includes most of Hebei
Province (China). We initially focused on the roads.
In the data provided by the OpenStreetMap, the
roads have their own type (motorway, primary road,
etc.) and are described by an ordered list of nodes.
The number of nodes in the study area is equal to
246,686. Each node has its own unique number and
is described with GPS coordinates. Distances
between nodes, and between nodes and the AQI
monitoring stations deployed in the area, can be
calculated, based on their GPS coordinates, using
the haversine formula, as follows:
where  and  denote the latitudes of the two
points (in radians),  denotes the difference
between the latitudes of the two points,  denotes
the difference between the longitudes of the two
points (in radians), and denotes the radius of the
Earth.
The minimum, maximum, mean, and mode
values of the distances between any two
OpenStreetMap nodes in the study area are
presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Distances between OpenStreetMap nodes
in the study area
Min
value
Max
value
Mean
value
Mode
value
0.02
2633.79
96.14
11.00
We converted the OpenStreetMap node data into
a graph, suitable for applying the Dijkstra algorithm.
Each edge in the graph represents a connection
between two nodes along a particular road existing
in the area. The indicators used are the edge length
and road type.
3.2 Refreshable Data
These data come from the AQI monitoring system,
operating on top of the IoT platform EMULSION,
which provides data on the main air pollutants
(PM2.5, PM10, O3, CO, SO2, NO2) and the AQI.
There are 62 AQI monitoring stations in the study
area (c.f., Figure 1). These data are updated on
every hour.
3.3 Computable Data
To implement the Dijkstra algorithm, each
OpenStreetMap node is assigned with a particular
air quality value , obtained by interpolation,
using the air quality values of the three nearest AQI
monitoring stations, as follows:
where , , and  denote the air
quality values of the three nearest AQI monitoring
stations, and , , and denote the distance
from the OpenStreetMap node to each of these three
stations, respectively.
Table 3 presents statistics of the minimum,
maximum, mean, and mode values of the distances
between the OpenStreetMap nodes in the study area
and the corresponding three nearest AQI monitoring
stations (Station 1 is the nearest, and Station 3 is the
farthest).
Table 3. Distances between OpenStreetMap nodes
and the three nearest AQI monitoring stations
in the study area
Distances (m)
Min
value
Max
value
Mean
value
Mode
value
Station 1
9
44251
8585
6847
Station 2
507
45406
10269
8756
Station 3
939
47254
11784
10448
As can be seen from Table 3, there are
worryingly large distances between some
OpenStreetMap nodes and the nearest AQI
monitoring stations, but these gaps can be
compensated by deploying more stations in the area
in the future.
4 Distributed Computing Architecture
The elaborated computing architecture is divided
into four subsystems, as presented in Figure 2. Each
subsystem is platform- and program-independent
and can be implemented using different
programming languages, operating systems, and
hardware. Communication between subsystems
adheres to open standard protocols. A major
advantage of this architecture is the use of multiple
computing servers, which makes it easily scalable
depending on the expected number of users and
workload.
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
561
Volume 21, 2024
4.1 Data Collection Subsystem
This subsystem consists of multiple AQI monitoring
stations and an information server to which these
stations periodically send their collected data. This
subsystem is apart from the other three subsystems
and is managed separately. The information server
provides the aggregated collected data through an
API in a JSON format.
Fig. 2: The operation of the developed distributed
architecture, utilized for route computation
4.2 Data Update Subsystem
This subsystem consists of an update script and a
database server. Periodically, the script is activated,
making a request to receive updates from the
information server of the first subsystem. The
received data are processed in an appropriate form
and sent to the database server for caching. The
update script then sends an update notification to
each computing server, operating as part of the third
subsystem, described next.
4.3 Computing Subsystem
When a computing server receives an update
notification, it makes a request to the caching
database server to receive the necessary new data,
associated with its activity. Once the data are
received, these are arranged in a form optimized for
fast reading, preferably by caching in RAM.
4.4 Route Generation Subsystem
Through a corresponding client application, the user
makes a request to the API of the proxy server to
calculate a route (of a particular type) between two
points on the map, according to her/his
requirements. The proxy server selects one of the
computing servers suitable for the request and
forwards the request to it. After performing the
required calculations, the computing server returns
the result to the proxy server, which in turn forwards
it to the client application, which renders the result
to the user.
The most recent (updated) data are used for
route calculations. When the time to pass a route
exceeds the updating time of data coming from the
AQI monitoring stations, new requests can be made
during the journey in order to regenerate the route
with greater truthfulness. It is also possible to apply
predictive algorithms based on historical data (such
algorithms have not been implemented yet).
5 Implementation
The computing architecture proposed in the
previous section is independent of the programming
language, operating system, and hardware, but in
order to have some implementation, concrete
technologies must be chosen. In the solution
presented here, the Linux Debian (trixie) operating
system is used for all servers (except for the first
subsystem) and PHP is used as a programming
language (for console and web execution).
5.1 Data Collection Subsystem
This subsystem was developed before starting the
work presented here; thus, it is not discussed further.
5.1.1 Data Update Subsystem
The update script is executed at a certain time
interval (currently, each hour) via cron. The script
makes an HTTP GET request to the information
server of the first subsystem and receives a response
in JSON format. The received data are processed
and sent to the MySQL server for caching.
Notification is then made via parallel GET requests
to the computing servers. Security measures are
taken by applying a unique key for each computing
server so that this call cannot be made by an
unauthorized participant.
5.1.2 Computing Subsystem
A major problem of the current implementation
relates to the natural way PHP scripts work. When a
PHP script is called, a new instance of it is created,
the required resources are allocated, the necessary
operations are performed, and a response is
returned, followed by the release of all allocated
resources. This continuous allocating and releasing
of resources for each call, involving huge data
structures, is extremely inefficient and cumbersome.
To solve this problem, the data are cached in two
stages:
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
562
Volume 21, 2024
1) Stage 1: Structuring the data in a jagged
array format in a PHP file, suitable for
importing via include() into the computation
script;
2) Stage 2: Transferring the obtained data
structure to RAM via the APCu extension
for Apache. Thus, once the structure is
allocated in the Apache server's RAM, it is
accessible by all instances of the computing
script without the need for multiple resource
allocations and releases.
When the Apache server is restarted, the cache in
RAM is lost, but the structure located in a file
(created in the first stage) is usable and allows it to
be cached in RAM again.
5.1.3 Route Generation Subsystem
This subsystem includes a client application, an API
proxy server, and multiple computing servers,
operating as follows:
The developed client application is accessible
through the official website of the
EMULSION project [21], which is hosted on
an Odroid-HC2 web server with a 32-bit
ARM CPU: Samsung Exynos5422 ARM®
Cortex™-A15 Quad 2.0GHz/Cortex™-A7
Quad 1.4GHz. The web application sends
requests to the API proxy using the HTTP
GET commands and receives responses in a
JSON format.
The API proxy is hosted on the same web
server and is implemented in PHP. When
requesting a route computation, it chooses a
random computation server, by taking into
account the server capabilities (more
powerful servers are called more often). The
received response is forwarded to the client
application. Necessary security measures are
taken by applying a unique secret key for
each computing server to prevent
unauthorized requests.
The computing servers include:
A PC with 2xCPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R)
Gold 6134 CPU @ 3.20GHz (cores: 16,
threads: 32). Only ¼ of its computing
capabilities are reserved for the route
computation task (threads: 8), whereas
the remaining capabilities are used for
performing other activities, as a
demonstration of the ability to use a
shared server.
A PC with Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-
1220 v3 @ 3.10GHz (cores/threads: 4).
15 single-board computers Odroid-N2+
with 64-bit ARM CPU: Amlogic
S922X, Quad Cortex-A73 2.4GHz and
Dual Cortex-A53 2GHz (cores/threads:
4+2).
When the compute script is called, it looks for
an available RAM cache. If such a cache is not
available, the data are loaded from the cached file
(Stage 1) and a new RAM cache is created.
During the trial experiments conducted with
single-board servers Odroid MC1 (with 4 servers
per unit) with 32-bit CPU (per server): Samsung
Exynos5422 ARM® Cortex™-A15 Quad
2.0GHz/Cortex™-A7 Quad 1.4GHz (cores/threads
per server: 8), the route computations often
exceeded two minutes. Therefore, this type of
single-board computer was excluded from the final
version of this subsystem. However, with another
software implementation of the computing process,
it would probably be possible to utilize such
inexpensive server hardware as well.
The used ARM computing servers (without the
two non-ARM servers) are depicted in Figure 3.
Fig. 3: The utilized Odroid single-board computers
(15x Odroid-N2+ and 5x Odroid-MC1)
6 Client Application
6.1 Setting up Maximum Values of Air
Quality Parameters
The user can specify a preferred maximum value for
each specific air pollutant (PM2.5, PM10, O3, CO,
SO2, NO2) and for the AQI, which must be not
exceeded in any case along the route.
6.2 Travel Modes
Different travel modes could be used by users, each
with its own exposure to polluted air and speed of
movement, which results in different inhaled doses.
In [22], [23], the rate of exposure to a particular air
pollutant on a route is calculated as follows:
    (3)
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
563
Volume 21, 2024
where  (L/min) denotes the minute ventilatory
rate (MVR),  (μg/m3) denotes the pollutant
concentration, and  (min) denotes the travel
time on the route.
Based on (3), we calculate the rate of exposure
to polluted air on a route, based on the AQI value,
as follows:
  󰇛 
󰇜 (4)
where denotes the AQI value of the th section
between two consecutive/neighboring
OpenStreetMap nodes on the route (calculated as
the average value of the interpolated AQI values of
the two nodes), denotes the travel time
through that section (calculated by dividing the
section length by the average travel speed on that
section), and  denotes the corresponding
coefficient of the travel mode, calculated by
comparing the MVRs for different travel modes,
using their average values reported by ChatGPT.
Coefficient  takes values between 0 and 1,
whereby a value of 1 means maximum exposure to
air pollution, and a value closer to 0 implies
minimum exposure. By comparing the MVRs of the
considered travel modes, shown in Table 4, it can be
seen that cycling leads to maximum exposure, so its
coefficient  is set to 1. The values of
other travel modes are calculated by dividing their
MVRs to the MVR of the cycling mode. More
accurate values of coefficient  can be obtained
with more precise empirical studies investigated and
taken into account in the future. If a user decides to
wear a protection mask when traveling, this could
be easily reflected in (4) by applying a
corresponding protection coefficient  .
In each travel mode, for each road type, there is
a default value for the average speed, which can be
adjusted in the application itself depending on the
legal regulations for road traffic (e.g., according to
maximum speed limits set), and can be further
adjusted by the user depending on her/his abilities
and habits related to the specific travel mode used.
Some travel modes may be prohibited on certain
road types (e.g., a car cannot be used within a
pedestrian zone).
6.3 Routes’ Start and End Points
In the current implementation, the selection of the
start and end points of a route is done by the user by
clicking on the map with the left (for the start point)
and right (for the end point) mouse buttons. The
specified coordinates will hardly coincide exactly
with the coordinates of any OpenStreetMap node in
the dataset. Therefore, the closest node existing on
the map is used for the route generation.
Table 4. Different travel modes and their
corresponding minute ventilatory rates (MVRs)
and coefficients
Travel
mode
MVR
(L/min)

Driving a car
(with closed windows)
7
0.200
Driving a car
(with open windows)
8
0.229
Motorcycling
10
0.286
Cycling
35
1.000
Walking
15
0.429
6.4 Route Types
In addition to the least air pollution exposure’
route, the developed web-based application can
generate and recommend also the fastest route and
shortest route for traveling. All route computations
are performed by means of the Dijkstra algorithm,
using, respectively, the ‘exposure rate, defined in
(4), as a cost for the ‘least air pollution exposure
route, the ‘time for the fastest route, and the
‘length’ for the shortest route.
6.5 Results
The final result for each generated route type
includes a route visualization, presented as a set of
ordered GPS coordinates used for route
visualization on the map, as shown in Figure 4(a)
(each route type is drawn in a different color), and
information about air quality parameter values on
each route type, as presented in Figure 4(b). More
specifically, the developed application generates
three different types of routes for traveling between
any two points in the study area. In the example
presented in Figure 4, these are (i) the healthiest
route with a minimum exposure rate of 1120.45
AQI.minutes, (ii) the fastest route with a minimum
travel duration of 1:29 h, and (iii) the shortest route
with a minimum travel distance of 133.069 km.
Additional data include the GPS coordinates of the
start and end points (respectively,
(37.53357480/114.51482110) and
(36.99950980/115.51223270) in this example), the
exposure rate, and the name of the server used for
the computation of each route type.
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
564
Volume 21, 2024
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4: Sample route generation: (a) different route
types (i.e., healthiest, fastest, and shortest route)
between two points in the study area; (b) the air
quality parameter values on the healthiest route,
generated in (a)
7 Conclusion
This paper has presented an elaborated distributed
computing architecture for the generation of the
healthiest routes (more precisely, the least air
pollution exposure’ routes), performed in near real-
time by means of the dynamic Dijkstra algorithm,
based on the air quality index (AQI). In addition, the
fastest and shortest routes are generated as well. The
generated routes are visualized on a map and
recommended to users through a specially
developed web-based application, as part of the
client tier of the supporting IoT platform
EMULSION. The generated healthiest routes, in
particular, allow the users to avoid air-polluted areas
posing particular health risks to them.
Future work will be focused on the development
of suitable models to predict the future AQI, based
on historical data, current meteorological data, and
weather forecasts, for the purposes of smart
proactive “healthy routes planning for outdoor
activities of users. The routes will be initially
preplanned, with the possibility to be dynamically
changed later, if needed, depending on the current
environmental conditions. The incorporation of such
health-related criteria into existing navigation
systems and applications for route generation and
recommendation is envisaged as an important
functionality extension of the latter, [5].
References:
[1] Ribeiro, P. and J.F.G. Mendes, Healthy routes
for active modes in school journeys.
International Journal of Sustainable
Development and Planning, 2013. 8(4): pp.
591-602. DOI: 10.2495/SDP-V8-N4-591-602.
[2] Gao, L.-N., F. Tao, P.-L. Ma, C.-Y. Wang, W.
Kong, W.-K. Chen, and T. Zhou, A short-
distance healthy route planning approach.
Journal of Transport & Health, 2022. 24: pp.
1-14. DOI: 10.1016/j.jth.2021.101314.
[3] Zou, Z., T. Cai, and K. Cao, An urban big
data-based air quality index prediction: A case
study of routes planning for outdoor activities
in Beijing. Environment and Planning B:
Urban Analytics and City Science, 2019.
47(6): pp. 948-963. DOI:
10.1177/2399808319862292.
[4] Air Quality Index (AQI) Basics, [Online].
https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/
(Accessed Date: September 20, 2024).
[5] Ganchev, I., Z. Ji, and M. O'Droma,
Horizontal IoT Platform EMULSION.
Electronics, 2023. 12(8): pp. 1-21. DOI:
10.3390/electronics12081864.
[6] Shafer, J., S. Rixner, and A.L. Cox. The
Hadoop distributed filesystem: Balancing
portability and performance. Proc. of 2010
IEEE International Symposium on
Performance Analysis of Systems & Software
(ISPASS), pp. 122-133. White Plains, NY,
USA, 2010. DOI:
10.1109/ISPASS.2010.5452045.
[7] Goodchild, M.F., Geographic information
system, in: Liu, L., Özsu, M.T. (eds)
Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer,
Boston, MA, 2009. pp. 1231-1236. DOI:
10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_178.
[8] Dijkstra, E.W., A note on two problems in
connexion with graphs. Numerische
Mathematik, 1959. 1(1): pp. 269-271. DOI:
10.1007/BF01386390.
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
565
Volume 21, 2024
[9] Hall, R.W., The Fastest Path through a
Network with Random Time-Dependent
Travel-Times. Transportation Science, 1986.
20(3): pp. 182-188.
[10] Pellazar, M.B. Vehicle route planning with
constraints using genetic algorithms. Proc. of
National Aerospace and Electronics
Conference (NAECON'94), vol. 1, pp. 111-
118. Dayton, OH, USA, 1994. DOI:
10.1109/naecon.1994.333010.
[11] Pattnaik, S.B., S. Mohan, and V.M. Tom,
Urban bus transit route network design using
genetic algorithm. Journal of Transportation
Engineering, 1998. 124(4): pp. 368-375. DOI:
10.1061/(ASCE)0733-947X(1998)124:4(368).
[12] Chien, S., Z.W. Yan, and E. Hou, Genetic
algorithm approach for transit route planning
and design. Journal of Transportation
Engineering, 2001. 127(3): pp. 200-207. DOI:
10.1061/(ASCE)0733-947X(2001)127:3(200).
[13] Boyan, J. and M. Mitzenmacher, Improved
results for route planning in stochastic
transportation. Proc. of the 12th Annual ACM-
SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, pp.
895-902. Washington, D.C., USA, 2001.
DOI: 10.1145/365411.365803.
[14] Nikolova, E., M. Brand, and D.R. Karger,
Optimal route planning under uncertainty.
Proc. of the 16th International Conference on
Automated Planning and Scheduling, pp. 131-
140. Cumbria, UK, 2006.
[15] Hatzopoulou, M., S. Weichenthal, G. Barreau,
M. Goldberg, W. Farrell, D. Crouse, and N.
Ross, A web-based route planning tool to
reduce cyclists' exposures to traffic pollution:
a case study in Montreal, Canada.
Environmental Research, 2013. 123: pp. 58-
61. DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2013.03.004.
[16] Zou, B., S. Li, Z. Zheng, B.F. Zhan, Z. Yang,
and N. Wan, Healthier routes planning: A new
method and online implementation for
minimizing air pollution exposure risk.
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems,
2020. 80: pp. 1-11.
DOI: 10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2019.101456.
[17] Hertel, O., M. Hvidberg, M. Ketzel, L. Storm,
and L. Stausgaard, A proper choice of route
significantly reduces air pollution exposure - a
study on bicycle and bus trips in urban streets.
Science of The Total Environment, 2008.
389(1): pp. 58-70.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.08.058.
[18] Zahmatkesh, H., M. Saber, and M.
Malekpour, A New Method for Urban Travel
Rout Planning Based on Air Pollution Sensor
Data. Current World Environment, 2015.
10(Special-Issue1): pp. 699-704.
DOI: 10.12944/CWE.10.Special-Issue1.83.
[19] Mahajan, S., Y.-S. Tang, D.-Y. Wu, T.-C.
Tsai and L.-J. Chen, CAR: The Clean Air
Routing Algorithm for Path Navigation With
Minimal PM2.5 Exposure on the Move. IEEE
Access, 2019. 7: pp. 147373-147382.
DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2946419.
[20] Arsanjani, J.J., A. Zipf, P. Mooney, and M.
Helbich, OpenStreetMap in GIScience:
Experiences, Research, and Applications, in
Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and
Cartography. 2015, Springer International
Publishing: Imprint: Springer, Cham.
[21] EMULSION project, [Online].
http://emulsion.science (Accessed Date:
September 20, 2024).
[22] Li, H.-C., P.-T. Chiueh, S.-P, Liu, and Y.-Y.
Huang, Assessment of different route choice
on commuters' exposure to air pollution in
Taipei, Taiwan. Environment Science
Pollution Research, 2017. 24(3): pp. 3163-
3171. DOI: 10.1007/s11356-016-8000-7.
[23] Ramos, C.A., H.T. Wolterbeek, and S.M.
Almeida, Air pollutant exposure and inhaled
dose during urban commuting: a comparison
between cycling and motorized modes. Air
Quality Atmosphere and Health, 2016. 9(8):
pp. 867-879. DOI: 10.1007/s11869-015-0389-
5.
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
566
Volume 21, 2024
Contribution of Individual Authors to the
Creation of a Scientific Article (Ghostwriting
Policy)
The authors equally contributed to the present
research, at all stages from the formulation of the
problem to the final findings and solution.
Sources of Funding for Research Presented in a
Scientific Article or Scientific Article Itself
This publication has emanated from joint research
conducted with the financial support of the
Bulgarian National Science Fund (BNSF) under the
Grant No. KP-06-IP-CHINA/1 (КП-06-ИП-
КИТАЙ/1) and the National Key Research and
Development Program of China under Grant No.
2017YFE0135700.
Conflict of Interest
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
(Attribution 4.0 International, CC BY 4.0)
This article is published under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
_US
WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on INFORMATION SCIENCE and APPLICATIONS
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2024.21.52
Lazar Pendov, Zhanlin Ji, Ivan Ganchev
E-ISSN: 2224-3402
567
Volume 21, 2024