Simulating Reverse Auction Bidding of Construction Contracts

Simulation using agents has gained a wide prominence in a wide area of applications. In particular agent-based negotiation is concerned with simulating the behavior of parties interacting with each other to reach an agreement. In this paper, a construction-specific model for negotiation between agents representing contractors in a Reverse Auction Bid (RAB) is presented. RAB is a fairly new electronic bidding model where contractors bid on a particular contract by iteratively lowering their bids. We specifically present a model that can deal with many-parties, single issue, multipleencounter negotiations. A computerized system is developed to test the model. An example of the system is presented for clarification.