A WEB-BASED MULTI-AGENT SYSTEM FOR TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT TO PROTECT OUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

To improve the situation of wasting natural resources, the existing transportation systems have to be optimized. This means that we should not only think about new technologies for saving energy but also about better use of the existing trafficways. The most efficient way to achieve these objectives is to automate the existing means of communication and to improve transportation management. Since most of the communication channels and technologies for automation in transportation management are Web-based, we want to describe how to improve Web-based transportation management. Talking about Web-based environments means talking about the Internet and services it offers. These Web-based environments build up a good basis for an agent-based approach, because all aspects for communication and information processing are also used in agent systems. In this approach, Web servers build the agents by themselves and an agent-based interaction works with the support of Web services. Thus, we can build an agent-based structure for transportation control that is similar to the structure of the Internet. Agent-based transportation management is a possible contribution to make transportation management more effective in regard to saving energy (fuel) and protecting our environment by stopping the increase of existing trafficways.