Author(s)

A. Fay

Abstract

Train traffic reaches - in its current form of operation - more and more the limits of its infrastructure. Therefore, new control concepts are being investigated which allow a more efficient usage of the existing infrastructure. A promising approach for decentralised control are intelligent agents. They provide a means for flexible resource allocation and, thus, for achieving an optimised balance between infrastructure load and customer requirements. The paper describes how intelligent agents can be used for the flexible planning and operation of railway systems. 1 Motivation Several railway systems are already restricted (in the amount of traffic being carried) by the limitations of their infrastructure, and even more will be faced with this situation in the near future. Instead of infrastructure extensions, which bear enormous costs and are difficult to realise today, smart

Keywords