A Tourists' Spatial Behaviors Simulator Based on MAS and GIS

摘要

Based on the study of individual spatial behavior, the authors developed a tourists' spatial behaviors simulator (TSBS). TSBS employs Geographic Information System (GIS) to manage the spatial data, and Multi-Agent system (MAS) to simulate tourists' behaviors. By utilizing TSBS, tourists' travel patterns such as location, cost, and state can be analyzed and predicted. So TSBS can be an efficient tool for the management and planning of tourist resorts. TSBS is composed of four modules: data customizing, database, agent computation, and simulation results analysis. By use of a data customizing module, the user can customize the simulation content based on the realities. The database of TSBS is composed of spatial database, knowledge base and Agent status database. The agent computation module calculates tourists' speed, location and attributes at every clock step. By utilizing the simulation results analyzing module, the user can assess the simulation results by different indexes, or visualize the simulation process by means of a graphical interface. Based on a Client/server computation model, the local area network, even the internet, can be used as a computing platform for TSBS. The results obtained show that TSBS will be an effective tool to analyze tourists' spatial behaviors in a tourist resort.