Decentralized management for transportation-logistics: A multi agent based approach

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Franke, H.^{; *} | Dangelmaier, W.

Affiliations: Heinz-Nixdorf-Institut, University of Paderborn, Fürstenallee 11, 33102 Paderborn, Germany

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Tel.: +49 5251 606449; E-mail: franke@hni.upb.de.

Abstract: Most commercially-operated traffic and transport systems are incumbent upon a central control, which offers only little scope for non-standard customer's requests. In most cases the customer has to orientate himself at fixed timetables as well as at given transport lots of the transport means. This paper therefore pursues the approach to make transport systems much more flexible by using decentralized transport control. In order to achieve this objective, the transport system concerned is to be divided into independent decentralized units that interact with each other in form of an agent system. First a description language based on Petri nets (PrT-nets) will be introduced which describes all relevant components of a transport system, particularly in order to carry through the transport disposition. The represented agent system furthermore offers the simple possibility of integrating components of the market economy, such as vehicle suppliers, conducting companies, big customers or service industries.

DOI: 10.3233/ICA-2003-10209

Journal: Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 203-210, 2003