Agent-based modelling of office market for a land use and transport model

Abstract

This paper proposes an agent-based office market model, as a component of a Land Use and Transport (L-T) model, SelfSim, to simulate how firms and office buildings co-evolve over time. Essentially, the office market model is involved in both firm demography and office building development: the firmographic model is capable of simulating four typical events, namely, firm birth, growth, relocation and closure; the office building development model is to simulate how facility agents develop office buildings, according to the demand from firms, which is associated with the firm demography. The office market model was tested within theoretical examples set up based on a Chinese medium-sized city, Baoding: both global and local Sensitivity Analyses (SAs) were conducted to explore how the twenty seven key model parameters could influence the thirteen model outputs of interest, identifying five influential parameters. Finally, some specific spatially disaggregate model results were presented.