Agent-Based Modeling: Approach for Improving Infrastructure Management

Despite purported increases in infrastructure investment and widespread adoption of new technologies and management systems to support efficient and effective decision making, studies continue to document the poor condition of civil infrastructure in the United States. This paper presents agent-based modeling as a paradigm to improve infrastructure decision making. Agent-based modeling, an approach to modeling complex systems, has been used in the life sciences and economics to capture the interactions between and among decision makers and their environment. This paper reviews infrastructure management and agent-based modeling concepts, and explores anecdotal evidence and simulation models to make a case for further application of agent-based models to infrastructure management.