Abstract
Intelligent agents have successfully solved the train pathing problem on a small portion of railroad network [Tsen, 1995, Ph.D. Thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, USA]. As the railroad network grows, it is imperative that the agents collaborate to operate as efficiently as possible. In this paper, the authors demonstrate a collaboration protocol based on a conditional measure of agent effectiveness. Because agent effectiveness is not directly measurable, a suitable metric for agent effectiveness is introduced. Where typically agents run with uniform frequency, the collaboration protocol schedules the agents with a frequency proportional to their expected effectiveness. This protocol introduced a 10-fold improvement in the agent efficiency when tested with a simulation program on a portion of the Burlington Northern railroad.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 919-930 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 1 2002 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Management Science and Operations Research
- Civil and Structural Engineering
- Transportation