Conflict Resolution through Negotiation in Railway Open Access Market: a Multi-agent System Approach

(2006) Conflict resolution through negotiation in a railway open access market : a multi‐agent system approach. Abstract: Open access reforms in railways allow multiple train operators to provide rail services on a common infrastructure. As railway operations are now independently managed by different stakeholders, conflicts in operations may arise, and there have been attempts on deriving an effective access charge regime so that these conflicts may be resolved. One approach is by direct negotiation between the infrastructure manager and the train service providers. Despite the substantial literatures available on the issue, few of which have considered the benefits of employing computer simulation as an evaluation tool of railway operational activities such as access pricing. This paper proposes a Multi-agent System (MAS) framework for the railway open market and demonstrates its feasibility by modelling the negotiation between an infrastructure provider and a train service operator. Empirical results have shown that the model is capable of resolving operational conflicts according to the market demand.