Transport planning with stakeholders: An agent-based modelling approach

Transport planners and economists have to face the challenges of modern cities while also dealing with multiple stakeholders and conflicting interests. Decisions should derive from a trade-off between the optimal solution and the most accepted one. Models and simulations are typically used as decision-support tools for technical/economic analyses. This paper proposes a novel modelling approach for a stakeholder analysis, aimed at investigating the complex phenomenon of consensus formation and the collective behaviour that can emerge from an interaction process. Agent-based models (ABMs) are used to reproduce the opinion dynamics on stakeholder networks, by representing single stakeholders (i.e. agents) endowed with certain characteristics (e.g. opinion, influence) and interacting with each other according to simple behavioural rules with the aim to find a convergence of opinions. The implemented models are described according to their main features, and the results of tailored participation experiments built with the help of multi-criteria decision-making methods are presented and compared to those derived from simulations, representing a first step towards model validation. The methodology proposed provides insight on the dynamics of social interaction and the emergent phenomena that can derive from participation processes. The implemented models can be used to help decision-makers and practitioners to support the design of efficient participation processes, and to deal with multiple stakeholders and complex issues regarding transport decisions.