Simulating Opinion Dynamics on Stakeholders’ Networks through Agent-based Modeling for Collective Transport Decisions

AbstractIn transport planning several actors with conflicting objectives are involved in the decision-making process. Though public participation is fundamental to legitimate a transport plan, some inconsistencies may arise when individual preferences are aggregated into a collective decision. In this work, we reproduce the process of collective preference ranking among plan alternatives using agent-based simulations of the opinion dynamics on groups of stakeholders linked in typical social networks. The results show the efficacy of interaction and the relevance of the network topology to find a transitive and shared collective preference ranking