Human Mobility, AI, and Urban Emissions: An Insidious Triangle

ABSTRACT
Data-informed navigation apps have become an indispensable tool in our daily lives, helping us navigate through the urban jungle to reach our destinations with ease. However, their impact on the environment is still largely unknown, raising concerns about their role in contributing to CO2 emissions and pollution. In this talk, we will present a simulation framework that aims to shed light on the impact of routing algorithms on CO2 emissions within an urban environment. We will first delve into the spatial patterns of urban emissions and demonstrate how understanding these patterns can inform the design of effective emissions reduction strategies. Next, we will present the results of several simulations that examine the impact of navigation apps on urban emissions. We will focus on the role of “route diversification” and explore how it can influence the environmental impact of navigation apps. The insights gained from this talk will pave the way for the development of next-generation routing principles that prioritize both individual needs and urban well-being.

BIO
Luca Pappalardo is a senior researcher at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies of the National Research Council of Italy (ISTI-CNR) in Pisa and a member of the KDD-Lab, a joint research initiative of the University of Pisa, ISTI-CNR, and Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. Luca’s research focuses on data science, computational social science, and the impact of AI on society, with a particular focus on the analysis of human mobility and the impact of AI on urban welfare. Luca is also part of SoBigData.eu, the European H2020 Research Infrastructure “Big Data Analytics and Social Mining Ecosystem”, in which he is responsible for coordinating the research that is conducted within the infrastructure.