An Initial Implementation of Multiagent Simulation of Travel Behavior for a Medium-Sized City in China

Since the traditional four-step model is so simple that it cannot solve complex modern transportation problems, microsimulation is gradually applied for transportation planning and some researches indicate that it is more compatible and realistic. In this paper, a framework of agent-based simulation of travel behavior is proposed, which is realized by MATSim, a simulation tool developed for large-scale agent-based simulation. MATSim is currently developed and some of its models are under training, so a detailed introduction of simulation structure and preparation of input data will be presented. In practice, the preparation process differs from one to another in different simulation projects because the available data for simulation is various. Thus, a simulation of travel behavior under a condition of limited available survey data will be studied based on MATSim; furthermore, a medium-sized city in China will be taken as an example to check whether agent-based simulation of travel behavior can be successfully applied in China.