Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning

Autonomous buses are becoming increasingly popular and have been widely developed in many countries. However, autonomous buses must learn to navigate the city efficiently to be integrated into public transport systems. Efficient operation of these buses can be achieved by intelligent agents through...

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Main Authors: Sung-Jung Wang, S. K. Jason Chang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2021-01-01
Series:Journal of Advanced Transportation
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/6654254
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author Sung-Jung Wang
S. K. Jason Chang
author_facet Sung-Jung Wang
S. K. Jason Chang
author_sort Sung-Jung Wang
collection DOAJ
description Autonomous buses are becoming increasingly popular and have been widely developed in many countries. However, autonomous buses must learn to navigate the city efficiently to be integrated into public transport systems. Efficient operation of these buses can be achieved by intelligent agents through reinforcement learning. In this study, we investigate the autonomous bus fleet control problem, which appears noisy to the agents owing to random arrivals and incomplete observation of the environment. We propose a multi-agent reinforcement learning method combined with an advanced policy gradient algorithm for this large-scale dynamic optimization problem. An agent-based simulation platform was developed to model the dynamic system of a fixed stop/station loop route, autonomous bus fleet, and passengers. This platform was also applied to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results indicate that the developed algorithm outperforms other reinforcement learning methods in the multi-agent domain. The simulation results also reveal the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm in outperforming the existing scheduled bus system in terms of the bus fleet size and passenger wait times for bus routes with comparatively lesser number of passengers.
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spelling doaj-art-5dbeed88e5a14c48b9533c965e1fe0272025-02-03T06:05:33ZengWileyJournal of Advanced Transportation0197-67292042-31952021-01-01202110.1155/2021/66542546654254Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement LearningSung-Jung Wang0S. K. Jason Chang1Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, TaiwanDepartment of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, TaiwanAutonomous buses are becoming increasingly popular and have been widely developed in many countries. However, autonomous buses must learn to navigate the city efficiently to be integrated into public transport systems. Efficient operation of these buses can be achieved by intelligent agents through reinforcement learning. In this study, we investigate the autonomous bus fleet control problem, which appears noisy to the agents owing to random arrivals and incomplete observation of the environment. We propose a multi-agent reinforcement learning method combined with an advanced policy gradient algorithm for this large-scale dynamic optimization problem. An agent-based simulation platform was developed to model the dynamic system of a fixed stop/station loop route, autonomous bus fleet, and passengers. This platform was also applied to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results indicate that the developed algorithm outperforms other reinforcement learning methods in the multi-agent domain. The simulation results also reveal the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm in outperforming the existing scheduled bus system in terms of the bus fleet size and passenger wait times for bus routes with comparatively lesser number of passengers.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/6654254
spellingShingle Sung-Jung Wang
S. K. Jason Chang
Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
Journal of Advanced Transportation
title Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
title_full Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
title_fullStr Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
title_full_unstemmed Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
title_short Autonomous Bus Fleet Control Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
title_sort autonomous bus fleet control using multiagent reinforcement learning
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2021/6654254
work_keys_str_mv AT sungjungwang autonomousbusfleetcontrolusingmultiagentreinforcementlearning
AT skjasonchang autonomousbusfleetcontrolusingmultiagentreinforcementlearning