A Multi-threaded Execution Model for the Agent-Based SEMSim Traffic Simulation

Heiko Aydt, Yadong Xu, Michael Lees, Alois C. Knoll

Abstract: An efficient simulation execution engine is crucial for agent-based traffic simulation. Depending on the size of the simulation scenario the execution engine would have to update several thousand agents during a single time step. This update may also include route calculations which are computationally expensive. The ability to dynamically re-calculate the route of agents is a feature often not required in classical microscopic traffic simulations. However, for the agent-based traffic simulation which is part of the Scalable Electro-Mobility Simulation (SEMSim) platform, the routing ability of agents is an important feature. In this paper, we describe a multi-threaded simulation engine that explicitly supports routing capabilities for every agent. In addition, we analyse the efficiency and performance of our execution model in the context of a Singapore-based simulation scenario.