The problem of low fertility rate in a country gives rise to numerous other social and economic problems. Many solutions have been proposed for overcoming this issue, and immigration is one of the proposed solutions which may also entail opening up country for refuge, due to some unfortunate incidents in other countries. Working on these lines, we simulate the impact of rapid immigration influx on fertility rates in Korea, using real data and agent based modeling.
This case study considers the simulation of a coal lading port in order to determine which extensions are needed based on expected capacity demands. These investigations are executed in cooperation with the German company TAKRAF GmbH which planned and constructed the considered port. Processes at this port are influenced by uncertainties, like the provided coal mix from mines and transportation times from mines to the port or meteorological disturbances. The maximum capacity of the current state of the port was determined at a first step. Components which mainly limit the maximum outcome were identified. Based on these results, different extension scenarios were evaluated.
A worldwide leading company in the cosmetic industry was dealing with great challenges regarding adapting its positioning strategy to the dynamically changing behaviors of the market. The company needed to decide where to invest its marketing budget to optimize its revenue and was using different traditional marketing mix models without any success. A marketing mix model was developed using agent-based modeling to predict the market’s reaction to a given distribution of a certain budget among the different touchpoints available. This innovative model uses market information and consumer information collected from surveys to estimate the company’s sales, level of awareness and level of consideration given its distributed investment. The tool was implemented as part of the marketing plan decision making process, providing the ability to test different scenarios and generate quantitative analysis of its results.
A holistic approach for the simulation of evacuations from buildings in cases of fire and toxic gas spread is developed within the German project iSiGG to achieve high reliability in fire safety planning. Its essence is in the mutual interaction of the domains of crowd simulation, pollutant gas spread simulation (CFD) and Building Information Modeling (BIM), embedded in a coherent IT system. The conceptual basis of this system is provided by a dynamic multimodel ensuring interoperability of all system components and supplying simulation tasks with the necessary building and environmental data. More importantly, it allows to take into account various possible changes of the state of building elements, which may be caused by inhabitants or by the building control systems and can lead to strong changes in the simulation models. The simulations themselves are coupled on numerical level through a shared Voxel Model in a co-simulation approach.
The negative effects of urban freight transports, such as air quality problems, road congestion, and noise emissions lead in many cities to major difficulties. A widely studied measure to reduce these negative effects are Urban Consolidation Centers (UCCs), which aim to bundle freight flows to reduce the number of urban freight transports. However, many projects showed that the additional costs of UCCs often made it unattractive for carriers to participate in such schemes. This paper presents an agent-based simulation to assess the impact of urban access regulations on the cost-attractiveness of UCCs for carriers. A case study inspired by the Frankfurt Rhine-Main area is presented to compare deliveries of a group of carriers with and without a Urban Consolidation Center under various urban access scenarios. The simulation shows that regulations increase the cost-attractiveness of UCCs for carriers to varying degrees while increasing the overall traffic volume.
The 1999 Columbine attack changed police response to the active shooter incidents (ASI) by the public and first responder’s tactics and training. With FBI data suggesting ASI events increasing, this study offers an AnyLogic models to understand mitigation actions such as Run.Hide.Fight. Our model represents a general densely populated area, such as public transportation terminal or indoor arena. Model agents include civilians, police, and shooter agents interact with the following parameters: civilian evacuation time, the response of police, firearm discharge by the shooter and police. The casualty rates vary from 85 to 1 causalities when the shooter’s rate of discharge was 1 to 60 seconds, respectively. The model as developed was shown to provide a method to evaluate and compare actions such as adequacy of training, introduction of technology into public buildings and the general design of public spaces to reduce the impact of ASI events.
Pakistan is rapidly becoming a water stressed country, thus affecting people’s well-being. Authorities are faced with making drastic water conservation policies toward achieving effective management of available water resources and efficient water supply delivery coupled with responsible demand side management. Due to the lack of modern water metering in Pakistan, water consumption is not being accurately monitored. To achieve this goal, we propose a hybrid modeling and simulation framework, consisting of Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) paradigm that deals with the behavior and characteristics of individuals and System Dynamics(SD) paradigm that accounts for water flow dynamics. Our approach provides dual-resolution expressiveness suitable for replicating real-world urban infrastructure scenarios. The key objective of the research is to assist authorities to understand and forecast short-term and long-term water consumption through examining varying patterns of water consumption in different climates and thus improving demand side water usage dynamically subject to water supply availability.
Airport retail revenue has long been recognized as a critical revenue stream to ensure an airport’s financial sustainability and stability. However, there is a lack of simulation model on how airport terminal could be better designed to facilitate this vital revenue stream. This paper presents a conceptual agent-based simulation model on passengers shopping behavior in the airport context. This model attempts to investigate the relationship between terminal design and retail performance through different scenarios studies. Results show that finger pier terminal shape can have a negative impact on retail revenue if shops are decentralized. Terminal with centralized shopping areas also performed better than a terminal with decentralized shopping area. Future research directions were proposed at the end to improve the existing simulation model with the aim of making it an essential evaluation tool for future terminal design.
The last 10 years have witnessed a marked upsurge of attention on Hybrid Simulation (HS). The majority of authors define HS as a joint modelling approach which includes two or more simulation approaches (mainly Discrete Event Simulation, System Dynamics and Agent Based Simulation). Whilst some may argue that HS has been in existence for more than 5 decades, the recent rise tended to be more problem driven rather than technical experimentation. Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) 2015, 2016, 2017 have witnessed 3 panels on the purpose, history and definition of HS, respectively. This paper reports on a comprehensive review conducted by the panelists on HS and its applications.
This paper provides an overview of a hybrid, discrete event simulation (DES) agent based model (ABM), simulation model of the overdue pregnancy outpatient clinic at the Obstetrics department of Akershus University Hospital, Norway. The model is being developed in collaboration with clinic staff. The purpose of the model is to better plan resources (e.g. staffing) to improve patient flow at the outpatient clinic given the uncertainty associated with demand. The uncertainty is due to an increase in the size of the hospital’s catchment area, changes to overdue pregnancy guidelines in Norway and that women can give birth before their appointments. The ABM model component represents the human parts of the system, the women and the clinic staff. The DES component represents the outpatient clinic’s physical location and processes/pathways that operate within it. The technicalities of the model are presented along with some illustrative results.