A multiagent systems with Petri Net approach for simulation of urban traffic networks

Abstract This paper presents a novel model framework for complex urban traffic systems based on the interconnection of a dynamical multi-agent system in a macroscopic level. The agents describe all the types of street segments, intersections, sources and sinks of cars, modelling the behavior of the flow of vehicles through them as simple differential equations. These agents include the phenomena of changes in the flow rate due to congestions, traffic signals and the density of the vehicles. Traffic signal changes are obtained by the evolution of Petri Nets, in order to represent a more real behavior. Therefore, a complex network can be constructed by the interconnection of the agents, in continuous time, and the Petri Nets, in a discrete-event behavior, becoming a hybrid and scalable system. In order to analyze the performance of the approach, a real set of streets and intersections in Montevideo City is studied. Also, the approach is compared with a simulation realized in the software TSIS-CORSIM, which contains real data of density of vehicles. The multi-agent system achieves comparable results, taking into account the differences in the level of details respect to TSIS-CORSIM. Thus, the results can represent the most important issues of vehicular traffic with less computational resources.