Copyright IoP publishingBiological systems have adapted to environmental constraints and limited resource availability. In the present study, we evaluate the algorithm underlying leaf venation (LV) deployment using graph theory. We compare the traffic balance, travel and cost efficiency of simply-connected LV networks to those of the fan tree and of the spanning tree. We use a Pareto front to show
that the total length of leaf venations is close to optimal. Then we apply the LV algorithm to design transportation networks in the city of Atlanta. Results show that leaf-inspired models can perform similarly or better than computer-intensive optimization algorithms in terms of network cost and service performance, which could facilitate the design of engineering transportation networks
