Agent-Based Modelling of City Systems

Dear Colleagues,

 

City systems, consisting of the various social and technical infrastructures required for urban areas to function, are facing major challenges in the coming decades as global urbanization and the pressure on resource efficiency and sustainability continue. Agent-based simulation and modelling techniques enable us to study these systems from various levels of abstraction looking at actors as well as system level perspectives, and are particularly suited to understand the dynamics of underlying structures and experiment with various scenarios and the effect of local decisions on emerging system properties.

This special issue aims to showcase innovative use of agent-based modelling (ABM) and multi-agent system (MAS) approaches for effective decision support regarding urban innovations in fields linked with urban development and to explore and identify how researchers in different disciplines integrate their knowledge through agent models. We are inviting researchers from across a wide range of disciplines (including computer science, physics, engineering, economics, sociology and others) to submit papers to this special issue that exhibit state-of the art innovation in ABM/MAS applied to cities. This innovation may come in the form of computational, conceptual, analytical, participatory or epistemological advances for a range of aims and motivations associated with the challenge of combining competitiveness and sustainable urban development in city systems. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

City Systems and Sustainability	e.g., resource efficiency, energy systems, sustainable resource management, environmental protection
City Systems and Governance	e.g., public decision-making, public social services, public common resources management
City Systems and Economy	e.g., productivity, technology transitions, urbanisation, real estate, ability to transform
City Systems and Mobility	e.g., transport, accessibility, electric vehicles, public transport
City Systems and Living	e.g., cultural facilities, crime, healthcase, education
City Systems and People	e.g., inclusiveness, cosmopolitanism, open-mindedness, social and ethnic plurality, technology adoption
City System Integration	e.g., linking components from various subsystems, interoperability of agent models, system of systems

City Systems emphasize multidisciplinary dialogue and collaborative work and in this special issue we are interested in illustrating how agent technologies can help to integrate and manage several city dynamics, show in what direction ABM/MAS have already proven real success and explore potential future trajectories.

We welcome case studies as well as methodological papers in this area and very much look forward to your submission.

Dr. Koen H. van Dam
Prof. Dr. Rémy Courdier
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.