Agent-based modeling and simulation of individual traffic as an environment for bus schedule simulation

To re-establish the regular driving operations of a tram network, which was disturbed significantly by unforeseen external events, traffic schedulers apply rescheduling and rerouting strategies. These strategies are usually multi-modal; they consider the interaction of trams, buses, even taxis. Thus, to evaluate the applicability of a given rescheduling or rerouting strategy prior to its implementation in the real-world system, a multi-modal simulation software is needed. In this article we present an agent-based model of individual traffic which will be applied as background to a planned simulation of bus traffic. These combined models are to be integrated with an existing tram schedule simulation; the resulting multi-modal model will then be applied to evaluate the usefulness of given rescheduling or rerouting strategies. After a short introduction to agent-based modeling and simulation, as well as to existing models of individual traffic, this paper proposes to model the behavior of individual traffic as an environment for agent-based bus schedule simulation. Finally, some experiments are conducted by modeling and simulating individual traffic in Cologne's highly frequented Barbarossaplatz area