Agent Oriented Urban Traffic Control Simulation

Abstract: "Urban traffic problems are very complex and highly interactive. The Multi-agent systems (MAS) approach may however provide a new hopeful direction. Currently, a simulation system is needed to understand and explore the difficulties in a MAS-based traffic control. This paper discusses some of the issues in an agent-oriented urban traffic control simulation, including a multi-agent paradigm for modelling the urban traffic problem and relationships among the traffic agents. A multi- agent urban traffic control simulation system and its testbed are also described."

The MATSim (Multi-Agent Transport Simulation) software project was started around 2006 with the goal of generating traffic and congestion patterns by following individual synthetic travelers through their daily or weekly activity programme. It has since then evolved from a collection of stand-alone C++ programs to an integrated Java-based framework which is publicly hosted, open-source available, automatically regression tested. It is currently used by about 40 groups throughout the world. This book takes stock of the current status. The first part of the book gives an introduction to the most important concepts, with the intention of enabling a potential user to set up and run basic simulations. The second part of the book describes how the basic functionality can be extended, for example by adding schedule-based public transit, electric or autonomous cars, paratransit, or within-day replanning. For each extension, the text provides pointers to the additional documentation and to the code base. It is also discussed how people with appropriate Java programming skills can write their own extensions, and plug them into the MATSim core. The project has started from the basic idea that traffic is a consequence of human behavior, and thus humans and their behavior should be the starting point of all modelling, and with the intuition that when simulations with 100 million particles are possible in computational physics, then behavior-oriented simulations with 10 million travelers should be possible in travel behavior research. The initial implementations thus combined concepts from computational physics and complex adaptive systems with concepts from travel behavior research. The third part of the book looks at theoretical concepts that are able to describe important aspects of the simulation system; for example, under certain conditions the code becomes a Monte Carlo engine sampling from a discrete choice model. Another important aspect is the interpretation of the MATSim score as utility in the microeconomic sense, opening up a connection to benefit cost analysis. Finally, the book collects use cases as they have been undertaken with MATSim. All current users of MATSim were invited to submit their work, and many followed with sometimes crisp and short and sometimes longer contributions, always with pointers to additional references. We hope that the book will become an invitation to explore, to build and to extend agent-based modeling of travel behavior from the stable and well tested core of MATSim documented here.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 20th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2020, held in Auckland, New Zealand, in May 2020 collocated with 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2020). Due to COVID-19 the workshop has been held online. The 9 revised full papers included in this volume were carefully selected from 11 submissions. The workshop focused on finding efficient solutions to model complex social systems, in such areas as economics, management, organizational and social sciences in general and much more.

Operational Research (OR) deals with the use of advanced analytical methods to support better decision-making. It is multidisciplinary with strong links to management science, decision science, computer science and many application areas such as engineering, manufacturing, commerce and healthcare. In the study of emergent behaviour in complex adaptive systems, Agent-based Modelling & Simulation (ABMS) is being used in many different domains such as healthcare, energy, evacuation, commerce, manufacturing and defense. This collection of articles presents a convenient introduction to ABMS with papers ranging from contemporary views to representative case studies. The OR Essentials series presents a unique cross-section of high quality research work fundamental to understanding contemporary issues and research across a range of Operational Research (OR) topics. It brings together some of the best research papers from the esteemed Operational Research Society and its associated journals, also published by Palgrave Macmillan.

The idea of a FAABS workshop was first conceived in 1998 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, while the Agent Technology Development Group in the Advanced Architectures and Automation Branch (Code 588) was developing a prototype agent community to automate satellite ground operations. While developing this system, several race conditions arose within and between agents. Due to the complexity of the agents and the communications between them, it was decided that a formal approach was needed to specify the agents and the communications between them, so that the system could be checked for additional errors. A formal model of the inter-agent communications was developed, with the expectation that this would enable us to find more errors. Success in this convinced us of the importance of using formal methods to model agent-based systems. To share our own experiences and to learn how others were approaching these issues, we decided to hold a workshop on formal methods and agent-based systems. The response was overwhelming. The result was the first FAABS workshop, which was held at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Posters, paper presentations, panels, and an invited talk by J Moore stimulated much discussion and subsequent collaboration.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th InternationalConference on Computational Logistics, ICCL 2017, held in Southampton,UK, in October 2017.The 38 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. They are organized in topical sections entitled: vehicle routing and scheduling; maritime logistics;synchromodal transportation; and transportation, logistics and supply chain planning.

This book again continues the biannual series of (now six) conference proceedings, which has become a classical reference in traffic and granular research alike. It addresses new developments at the borderline between physics, engineering and computational science. Complex systems, where many simple agents, be it vehicles or particles, give rise to surprising and fascinating phenomena.

Building effective and user-friendly transportation systems is one of the big challenges for engineers in the 21st century. There is an increasing need to understand, model, and govern such systems at both, the individual and the society level. Traffic and transportation scenarios are extraordinarily appealing for Distributed Artificial Intelligence, and (multi-)agent technology in particular. This book gives an overview of recent advances in agent-based transportation systems.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the two workshops held at the 14th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems, PRIMA 2011, held in Wollongong, Australia, in November. The workshops were, Workshop on Agent Based Simulation for a Sustainable Society (ABSSS 2011) and International Workshop on Multi-Agent Smart Computing (MASmart 2011). The 8 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers cover topics from agent based simulation for a sustainable society and on multi-agent smart computing.

The discovery and development of new computational methods have expanded the capabilities and uses of simulations. With agent-based models, the applications of computer simulations are significantly enhanced. Multi-Agent-Based Simulations Applied to Biological and Environmental Systems is a pivotal reference source for the latest research on the implementation of autonomous agents in computer simulation paradigms. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant applications, such as biodiversity conservation, pollution reduction, and environmental risk assessment, this publication is an ideal source for researchers, academics, engineers, practitioners, and professionals seeking material on various issues surrounding the use of agent-based simulations.