A Multiagent Model for Alternative Plan Generation

Abstract

The utilization of multiagent technology for urban planning purposes has already received much attention with regard to predicting and evaluating the effects of different policy scenarios and plan alternatives. The generation of these plan alternatives, however, remains underexplored in this context. In this paper the authors describe a multiagent model for generating alternative land-use plans, in which the agents are land-use experts that initiate the development of plan proposals and communicate with each other over time in order to draw up the proposals incrementally. The authors present a probabilistic approach to agent behaviour to enable decisionmaking under conditions of uncertainty. They describe what personal and collective beliefs agents construct and use in order to choose their actions strategically. The negotiation, taking place between the initiating agent and the other agents, aimed at reaching agreement with regard to the various claims, is organized as an iterative process in which both parties consider conciliatory adjustments to their strategies, and thus their decisions, in order to try to find mutually acceptable solutions. A hypothetical case study demonstrates the operation of the model and the effects of its behavioural parameters.