Agent based simulation for the design of a mobility service in the Paris-Saclay area

• Published in: Transportation research procedia (Online) 2021, Vol.52, p.677-683
• Main Authors: Chouaki, Tarek, Puchinger, Jakob
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: agent based simulation; robo-taxis; shared mobility
• ISSN: 2352-1465; 2352-1465
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2021.01.081

Autonomous vehicles promise an important opportunity for a complete paradigm shift for the design of transportation systems. These systems will become more flexible and efficient by adapting to the travelers’ demand. On the other hand, multi agent systems offer an intuitive and powerful way to design complex distributed systems and agent based simulation has proved to be well suited for studying the performance of mobility services and their impact on the users and the traffic in general. In this study, we use an Agent-Based modeling approach to design a mobility system based on a fleet of autonomous vehicles (robo-taxis and shuttles) and connected road side units, each of these elements represented by intelligent collaborative agents. In our model, the control is distributed among the agents and the global behaviour of the system emerges from local decisions. We then used a microsimulation tool to test the model on the real road network of the Paris-Saclay area. Since this area is planned to become a center for technology, innovation and education and is currently under constant development, it offers an opportunity for the design and the implementation of new models of transportation services. We designed our mobility system in an incremental manner by introducing more components and more intelligent behaviour and testing its performance at each step. Our results suggest that for our area of study, a mobility service that relies on autonomous vehicles aided by connected road side units that allow to retrieve information about the traffic would perform better than a regular service.