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Passenger-Induced Delay Propagation: Agent-Based Simulation of Passengers in Rail Networks

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Simulation Science (SimScience 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 889))

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Abstract

Current work on delay management in railway networks has – to the best of our knowledge – largely ignored the impact of passengers’ behavior on train delays. This paper describes ongoing work aiming to explore this topic. We propose a hybrid agent-based architecture combining a macroscopic railway network simulation with a microscopic simulation of passengers in stations based on the LightJason agent platform. Using an initial instantiation of the architecture, we model a simple platform changing scenario and explore how departure delays of trains are influenced by delays of incoming trains, and by numbers and heterogeneity of passengers. Our results support the hypothesis that passengers’ behavior in fact has a significant effect on delays of departing trains, i.e., that passengers’ behavior in stations must not be neglected. We recommend to include these effects in up-to-date models of delay management.

Partially supported by Simulation Science Center Clausthal/Göttingen (SWZ), project ASIMOV.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For reasons of simplicity, throughout this paper we will uniformly use the term passenger to refer to passengers on a train, but also to travelers at a railway station (including pedestrian through-traffic).

  2. 2.

    see scenario in [2] or https://lightjason.github.io/news/2017-02-video/.

  3. 3.

    Evaluation was performed in January 2017 using the tools FindBugs and J-Depend.

  4. 4.

    ASL+ stands for AgentSpeak(L++).

  5. 5.

    http://lightjason.github.io/AgentSpeak/project-reports.html.

  6. 6.

    https://lightjason.github.io/benchmark/.

  7. 7.

    http://lightjason.org.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Sebastian Albert & Anita Schöbel

  2. Technische Universität Clausthal, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

    Philipp Kraus & Jörg P. Müller

Authors
  1. Sebastian Albert
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  2. Philipp Kraus
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  3. Jörg P. Müller
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  4. Anita Schöbel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anita Schöbel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany

    Marcus Baum

  2. Institute of Applied Mechanics, TU Clausthal, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Lower Saxony, Germany

    Gunther Brenner

  3. Institute of Computer Science, Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany

    Jens Grabowski

  4. Institute of Applied Stochastics and Operations Research, TU Clausthal, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Lower Saxony, Germany

    Thomas Hanschke

  5. Institute of Applied Mechanics, TU Clausthal, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Lower Saxony, Germany

    Stefan Hartmann

  6. Institute for Numerical and Applied Mathematics, Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany

    Anita Schöbel

Appendix: Traveller Movement Behaviour, Expressed in AgentSpeak(L++) Code

Appendix: Traveller Movement Behaviour, Expressed in AgentSpeak(L++) Code

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Albert, S., Kraus, P., Müller, J.P., Schöbel, A. (2018). Passenger-Induced Delay Propagation: Agent-Based Simulation of Passengers in Rail Networks. In: Baum, M., Brenner, G., Grabowski, J., Hanschke, T., Hartmann, S., Schöbel, A. (eds) Simulation Science. SimScience 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 889. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96271-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96271-9_1

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