Puma: Multi-Agent Modelling of Urban Systems

Predicting Urbanisation with Multi-Agents, a fully fledged multi-agent system of urban processes is developing, which will consist of various modules, representing the behaviours of specific actors.

Abstract

It is increasingly recognised that land-use change processes are the outcome of decisions made by individual actors, such as land owners, authorities, firms and households. In order to improve the theoretical basis of land-use modelling and to represent land-use changes in a behaviourally more realistic way, we are developing PUMA (Predicting Urbanisation with Multi-Agents), a fully fledged multi-agent system of urban processes. PUMAwill consist of various modules, representing the behaviours of specific actors. The land conversion module describes farmers’, authorities’, investors’ and developers’ decisions to sell or buy land and develop it into other uses. The households module describes households’ housing and work careers in relation to life cycle events (marriage, child birth, ageing, job change et cetera.) and also their daily activity patterns. The firms module includes firms’ demography and their related demand for production facilities leading to (re)location processes. The chapter describes the conceptual model, the first phase of operationalisation and initial results.