Traffic Life: Temporal Dynamics and Regulatory Dimensions in Agent-Based Transport Simulations
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In: Mobilities, Vol. 15, No. 5, 2020, p. 725-739.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Traffic Life: Temporal Dynamics and Regulatory Dimensions in Agent-Based Transport Simulations
AU - Vehlken, Sebastian
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The article discusses the interplay of normative and temporal dynamics in agent-based traffic simulations (ABM). From a media-historical perspective, it focuses on the TRANSIMS simulation system as a seminal example for an ABM ‘mindset’ in transportation and infrastructure simulation. ABM explicitly links traffic simulation with the broader focus of mobility studies by connecting the mere physicality of transport dynamics with a sociality of agents claiming to be descriptive of real-life structures. First, TRANSIMS elevates the examination of traffic dynamics to a meta-level of urban infrastructure design where individual timing and purposeful agent behaviors are placed at the heart of traffic systems. Second, TRANSIMS provides a ‘virtual testbed’ by generating traffic scenarios which eventually lead to situations that meet certain normative limits or regulatory guidelines. And third, ABM often display a strong tendency towards a methodological individualism which requires a ‘theory guidance’ by disciplines like sociology, media theory, or political science to challenge the oftentimes oversimplifying parameters of their ‘artificial sociality’. Consequently, with regard to the scope of mobility studies, ABM can be understood as a medium which negotiates conceptual and interdisciplinary differences and thereby transcends the solely pragmatist notion of ‘virtual testbeds’ as unmitigated optimization tools.
AB - The article discusses the interplay of normative and temporal dynamics in agent-based traffic simulations (ABM). From a media-historical perspective, it focuses on the TRANSIMS simulation system as a seminal example for an ABM ‘mindset’ in transportation and infrastructure simulation. ABM explicitly links traffic simulation with the broader focus of mobility studies by connecting the mere physicality of transport dynamics with a sociality of agents claiming to be descriptive of real-life structures. First, TRANSIMS elevates the examination of traffic dynamics to a meta-level of urban infrastructure design where individual timing and purposeful agent behaviors are placed at the heart of traffic systems. Second, TRANSIMS provides a ‘virtual testbed’ by generating traffic scenarios which eventually lead to situations that meet certain normative limits or regulatory guidelines. And third, ABM often display a strong tendency towards a methodological individualism which requires a ‘theory guidance’ by disciplines like sociology, media theory, or political science to challenge the oftentimes oversimplifying parameters of their ‘artificial sociality’. Consequently, with regard to the scope of mobility studies, ABM can be understood as a medium which negotiates conceptual and interdisciplinary differences and thereby transcends the solely pragmatist notion of ‘virtual testbeds’ as unmitigated optimization tools.
KW - Media and communication studies
KW - Agent-based computer simulation
KW - ABM
KW - cellular automata
KW - TRANSIMS
KW - traffic simulation
KW - theory guidance
KW - methological individualism
KW - smartness
KW - Digital media
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091019201&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17450101.2020.1806509
DO - 10.1080/17450101.2020.1806509
M3 - Journal articles
VL - 15
SP - 725
EP - 739
JO - Mobilities
JF - Mobilities
SN - 1745-0101
IS - 5
ER -