The ABMUS2018 workshop on Agent-based modelling of urban systems will held on 14/15 July 2018 in Stockholm, Sweden. The workshop is part of the Federated AI Meeting (FAIM2018), which includes the AAMAS2018 conference and IJCAI-ECAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence). It is the follow-up of ABMUS2016 held in Singapore during AAMAS2016 on the 10th of May 2016 and ABMUS2017 held in Sao Paulo during AAMAS2017 on the 8th of May 2017.
The central goal of this workshop is to bring together the community of researchers and practitioners who use agent-based models and multi-agent systems to understand and manage cities and urban infrastructure systems. Through the exchange of ideas and state-of-the-art within this area, we will pool together current thinking to discuss avenues of fruitful research and methodological challenges we face in building robust, realistic, and trusted models of urban systems.
Call for Papers!
Agent-based modelling has proven itself to be a useful technique for understanding and predicting changes and impact of urban form and policy on urban systems. However, recognised challenges remain in designing, developing and implementing trusted models that can be used by industry and governments to enhance decision-making. This workshop invites submissions from researchers and practitioners who use agent-based models and agent systems to understand, explore, and manage cities and urban infrastructure systems.
In particular, we invite presentations that describe efforts and challenges in design, development and deployment of urban system models that have balanced the provision of mechanistic insight into complex challenges facing urban systems vs practical challenges of producing ‘numbers’ for real-world decision support for industry and government.
Workshop topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Large scale urban simulation applications
• Spatially explicit micro-simulation modelling
• Agent-based modelling of urban transport, land-use, housing, energy, health, etc.
• Simulation of household behaviour and technology adoption
• Localized population synthesis
• Multi-scale urban systems (temporal and spatial)
• Social simulation of demographic transitions
• Model development and co-development processes and protocols
• Data structures for simulating urban environments
• (Multi-)agent systems to provide decision support in e.g. transport, energy and air quality
• Connection of simulation models to social and geographical theory
• Government and industry engagement in model development and uptake
• Processes of model co-development to enhance decision-making in urban systems
• Development in model interfaces and engagement that enhance model uptake
If accepted, each presenter will be given a short time slot (max 10 minutes) to introduce their paper and/or case study, followed by 5-10 minutes in which presenters will share their views on the balancing insight and numbers theme. After three presentations there will be 20-30 minutes of group discussion in which presenters will act as panel members.
Papers should be submitted as an extended abstract (2-4 pages) through the workshop website. Your abstract should include a Title as well as all authors and affiliations. It should articulate the objectives of the paper and provide a brief but thorough description of the research related to the theme of the workshop and the expected gain by those attending the presentation. Accepted authors will be invited to submit a full paper after the workshop to be included in the post-workshop proceedings.
For details on how to submit please see http://modelling-urban-systems.com/abmus2018 and for more information please contact:
• Koen van Dam – [email protected]
• Jason Thompson – [email protected]

Submission and important dates
How to submit a paper
Participants are invited to submit an extended abstract (2-4 pages) describing their work on one or more of the topics relevant to the workshop. The submission should articulate the objectives of the paper and provide a brief but thorough description of the research related to the theme of the workshop. All submissions to the workshop will be reviewed by the organising committee and program committee, with at least two independent reviews per paper.
Authors are requested to prepare their papers by following the LNCS Springer instructions, preferably using the LaTeX template provided but an MS Word template is also available.
All papers must be submitted through the workshop’s EasyChair page:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=abmus2018 (available shortly).
Important dates
• 15 April 2018: deadline for extended abstract submissions
• 31 May 2018: Notification of acceptance following the review process
• 30 June 2018: Deadline for submitting camera-ready papers for inclusion in the pre-proceedings
• 14-15 July 2018: ABMUS workshop in Stockholm, Sweden
• Following the workshop, invitation for full papers
Organisation
The organising committee consists of
• Dr Koen H. van Dam, Imperial College London
• Dr Jason Thompson, University of Melbourne
• Prof Pascal Perez, University of Wollongong
• Dr Nick Malleson, University of Leeds
• Dr Alison Heppenstall, University of Leeds
• Dr Andrew T. Crooks, George Mason University

Proceedings and special issues
All accepted papers will be made available in the pre-proceedings. Please note that at least one author must register for the workshop in order for a paper to appear in the workshop proceedings. After the conference all authors will be invited to submit a full paper for the ABMUS2018 proceedings to appear as an LNAI volume with Springer.
Programme
The agenda for the ABMUS2018 workshop, which will be held on the 14th or 15th of July 2018 (to be confirmed), will be made available closer to the date.
Workshop format
The workshop will take place over one full day, with paper presentations grouped by theme, such as “transport”, “energy”, “health”, “demographics” or other city sectors, and finally a session on “system interoperability and a holistic view of cities as complex systems” to bring the other themes together and enable participants to build links and discuss collaboration. Following the successful format of the previous ABMUS workshops, each presenter will be given a short time slot (max 10 minutes) to introduce the paper and/or case study, followed by 5-10 minutes in which they present their views on the workshop theme (or other shared themes identified during the review process) following a predefined format of issues. After three presentations there will be 20-30 minutes of overall discussion in which the presenters act as panel members.