Applying Evolutionary Computation Approach for Identifying an Suite of Optimal Traffic Intervention Strategies against Taiwan's Pandemic Novel Influenza

An effective traffic intervention strategy can delay the spread of a new influenza virus and mitigate synchronous epidemic timing across urban and rural areas so as to prevent infection surges. In turn, this will support the most efficient use of limited medical resources and prevent the collapse of large-scale medical systems. Delays can also give health authorities more time to formulate alternative intervention policies, including the procurement of anti-viral medicines from pharmaceutical companies and the accelerated development of a new vaccine. However, the potential costs of traffic intervention strategies must be taken into account, especially in terms of how they might affect local economic activity. For this two-year investigation we will use a combination of surveys and interviews with sociologists to construct a general-purpose daily commute network model and to analyze its topological properties. The significant complexity of transportation networks will present a challenge to tailoring a cost-efficient traffic intervention strategy. We will therefore apply an evolutionary computation approach for identifying an optimal strategy. Since transportation network heterogeneity dramatically affects the temporal and spatial progression of infectious diseases, we will investigate traffic mitigation efficiency in terms of the complete topological structure of a network. In addition, we will use a combination of a deterministic compartmental SLIR model (which describes local infection dynamics among individuals) and Taiwan’s transportation infrastructure to simulate the transmission dynamics of a pandemic influenza. We expect that our results will show that the proposed framework is capable of recommending optimal traffic control policies based on outbreak sources and policy implementation timing. It is our hope that this model and evolutionary computation can be applied to other public health policies (e.g., the optimal distribution of finite anti-viral medicines to cities in Taiwan) and therefore assist in the containment of an influenza outbreak.

Project ID:PC9907-2516
External Project ID:NSC99-2314-B182-031