König, S.; Braun, I.; Schnieder, E.:
Decentralized Management and Operations Control Concept for Railway Freight Transport Services by Multi Agent Systems.
In: Tsugawa, S.; Aoki, M., Hrsg.: CTS 2003 - Preprints, S. 355-361, Tokyo, Japan, August 2003. 10th IFAC Symposium on Control in Transportation System/Tokyo, Japan.
The paper describes an approach for a management system for railway freight traffic by using agent technology. It is designed to allow small and autonomous transport units - so-called module trains - to operate in a flexible way besides conventional trains. It enables trains to be operated with short-termed planning horizons and improves exploitation of track capacity by making up so-called virtual trains sets during operation. The paper gives a system overview and describes the main tasks of agent based transport planning and operation, including the description of an improved headway control system as an extension to ETCS level 3.