Agent-based Simulation Model for Long-term Carpooling: Effect of Activity Planning Constraints

Abstract

In order to commute by carpooling, individuals need to communicate, negotiate and coordinate, and in most cases adapt their agenda (daily schedule) to enable cooperation. Through negotiation, agents (individuals) can reach complex agreements in an iterative way which meet the criteria for the successful negotiation. The procedure of negotiation and trip execution in the carpooling consists of a number of steps namely; (i) explore the social network, (ii) negotiate agenda to reach complex agreements, and (iii) long term trip execution. This paper presents a conceptual design of an organizational-based and agent-based model (ABM) of a set of candidate carpoolers that serves as a proof of concept and is an extension of a simple negotiation model for carpooling. The proposed model is used for simulating the interactions of autonomous agents with their agenda and explore social networks to initiate agent communication to trigger the negotiation process. The schedule adaptation depends on the preferences among feasible schedules of the individuals, generally depends on both the time of day and on the duration of the participation. In this simulation of the evolution we consider a daily schedule that consists of three activities (home, work and home) and a chain of two intermediate trips (home-to-work and work-to-home) only. We carried out a validation study of our results with real data collected in Flanders, Belgium. From the simulation’s discussions, it is possible to understand the causes why people can adapt their daily schedule to enable cooperation in order to carpool. The future research will mainly focus on enhancing the mechanism for negotiation between agents.