This demo is an implementation of a multi agent scenario that was developed in the AKA-MOD project at DFKI [FK93].

9.1 The Idea

The scenario features a set of concurrently acting agents of three different kinds: a broker, transportation companies and drivers.

The broker accepts a transportation order and announces it to some transportation companies. Each of them passes the same order to all of its drivers.

Subsequently, each driver computes its minimal cost for executing this order, which is returned to the transportation company. As cost the detour a driver has to make is chosen. The cheapest driver is chosen, the minimal cost is passed to the broker, and the remaining drivers are informed about rejection of their offers.

The broker selects the minimum priced transportation company, informs the selected company on acceptance, and sends rejections to the others, which accordingly inform their drivers about the rejection.

Finally, the minimum priced transport company passes acceptance to the remaining and cheapest driver. Last but not least this order is fulfilled by the chosen driver.

9.2 Usage

After starting the demo a windows that contains the map of Germany, and some menus, and buttons for controlling the scenario.

The Transportation Menu


: Displays a window containing short information on the Demo.

: Ends the demo.

The Configure Menu


: Displays a dialog to add new companies.

: Displays a dialog to remove one of the current companies.

: Displays a dialog to add a new driver for an already existing company.

: Displays a dialog to remove a driver.

: Adds a set of two default companies with two driver each.

The Random Menu


: Allows to toggle whether transportation tasks are generated randomly.

The remaining items allow to control the speed of task generation.

The Windows Menu

Log window

By selecting an item, a log window for that agent is displayed. For trucks the log window can also be displayed by clicking them with the left mouse button.

Entering Tasks Manually

Besides of the automatic random generation of transportation tasks, these can also be entered manually. This can be done by entering the From-city, the To-city, the Good, and the Weight manually in the respective entries at the bottom of the window.

City selection

By clicking a city in the window with the left mouse button, this city will be written to the From entry. Clicking the middle button will do the same for To. By clicking the Send button the transportation task is sent to the broker.