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2.1 Virtual Enterprise
A virtual enterprise is a cooperation network of
legally independent companies, which quickly
constitute a whole and contribute mainly their core
competences in order to exploit a specific business
opportunity. In general terms, the life cycle of a
virtual enterprise is marked by four phases, that go
from the identification, evaluation and selection of
business opportunities, to the selection of partners
for conforming the virtual enterprise; later, a phase
of operation, where the business opportunity is
exploited and a phase associated to the end of the
virtual enterprise, with the corresponding separation
of assets.
2.2 Transport Requirements
In the DRTS, is identified a set of actors, who
interact in different ways. In general terms and by
considering any service, a normal way to understand
the term "users" is to only associate it to the "end
users", that is to say, to the people that actually use
the service. However, in a complex system like this
one of passengers transportation, there are many
other users or actors who have a direct interest in the
commercial, social and infraestructure impacts.
According to the present development, the actors
considered in a DRTS correspond to:
User. Represents the end user of the passengers
transport system. The user has the faculty to make
transport requests (with their respective conditions),
as well as to indicate any problem that may affect
him and that can has incidence in the concretion of
the requested trip.
Transport Operator. Represents a transport
company within the system. A transport operator can
correspond to a single person (who is performing the
roles of operator and driver at the same time), or can
also correspond to a company composed by multiple
vehicles (fleet of vehicles). The virtual
transportation enterprise is conformed by
heterogeneous operators.
Government Entity. Represents a government party
with regulation or control faculties, which guard
current legislation and the correct service contracts
fulfillment.
Active Destination. Represents a frequent
destination within the total of existing destinations.
An active destination can make the virtual
transportation enterprise to realize a necessity or a
business opportunity available, as well as to indicate
problems associated to the transport services offered,
such as a loss in the quality of service, or restrictions
on the operation.
Traffic Information System. Represents an
external information system which gives information
on present traffic conditions, collisions, traffic jams,
alterations due to streets repair, among others.
Virtual Enterprise Information System. Contains
a transaction system and a management system of
affiliated enterprises. The first system controls all
satisfied transportation requests and those in course
of action, including all the information of the
transport request and of the transportation service
characteristics offered through the virtual
transportation enterprise. The second system
administers the virtual enterprise lifecycle, from the
affiliation of a transport operator, to the separation
among the operators and the virtual transportation
enterprise.
Transport Operator Information System. It is
made up of a Fleet Management System and a
Solver System. The first system manages at internal
level, within the transport operator, all its fleets
and/or vehicles affiliated to the virtual transportation
enterprise. The second system optimizes the
operations of transport by means of a solver of
heuristic nature.
3 AGENT TECHNOLOGY
In the last years an emergent paradigm has been
increasingly consolidating incide diverse study areas
related to the Artificial Intelligence filed. It
corresponds to the Agent paradigm, which
approaches the development of entities that could act
in an autonomous and reasoned way. Considering
that consensus does not exist on a single definition
for the term Agent, such term will be understood
according to what described in (Weiss, 1999): “An
agent is a computer system that is situated in some
environment, and that is capable of autonomous
action in this environment in order to meet its design
objetives”.
The need to develop complex applications
compound by multiple subsystems that interact with
each other does leverage the need to distribute the
responsabilities among different agents, moving us
to Multiagent Systems (in ahead MAS). Is generally
accepted that coordination is a key and
distinguishing characteristic in a MAS (Mas, 2005).
TOWARDS AN AGENT FRAMEWORK FOR A PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION VIRTUAL ENTERPRISE
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