J Geogr Syst (2017) 19:109–132

DOI 10.1007/s10109-016-0243-9

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Towards a conceptual multi-agent-based framework

to simulate the spatial group decision-making process

Seyed Morsal Ghavami1 • Mohammad Taleai1

Received: 17 April 2016 / Accepted: 8 November 2016 / Published online: 22 November 2016
 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Abstract Most spatial problems are multi-actor, multi-issue and multi-phase in

nature. In addition to their intrinsic complexity, spatial problems usually involve
groups of actors from different organizational and cognitive backgrounds, all of
whom participate in a social structure to resolve or reduce the complexity of a given
problem. Hence, it is important to study and evaluate what different aspects influ-
ence the spatial problem resolution process. Recently, multi-agent systems con-
sisting of groups of separate agent entities all interacting with each other have been
put forward as appropriate tools to use to study and resolve such problems. In this
study, then in order to generate a better level of understanding regarding the spatial
problem group decision-making process, a conceptual multi-agent-based framework
is used that represents and specifies all the necessary concepts and entities needed to
aid group decision making, based on a simulation of the group decision-making
process as well as the relationships that exist among the different concepts involved.
The study uses five main influencing entities as concepts in the simulation process:
spatial influence, individual-level influence, group-level influence, negotiation
influence and group performance measures. Further, it explains the relationship
among different concepts in a descriptive rather than explanatory manner. To
illustrate the proposed framework, the approval process for an urban land use master
plan in Zanjan—a provincial capital in Iran—is simulated using MAS, the results
highlighting the effectiveness of applying an MAS-based framework when wishing
to study the group decision-making process used to resolve spatial problems.

& Seyed Morsal Ghavami

mghavami@mail.kntu.ac.ir
Mohammad Taleai
taleai@kntu.ac.ir
1
Geospatial Information System, Geomatics Engineering, K.N.Toosi University of Technology,
No. 1346, Vali-asr Ave, Mirdamad Cross, Tehran 1996715433, Iran

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Keywords Conceptual framework  Multi-agent system  Spatial group decision

making  Spatial planning  Land use planning

JEL Classification R14  R52  R58

1 Introduction

Group decision making—also known as collaborative decision making—is a situation

faced when different stakeholders are collectively required to become involved in
making a decision. Group decision making has two main advantages over decisions
made by individuals (Uhl-Bien et al. 2013). First, it tends to generate a greater number
and higher quality of solution options, due to the combined strengths and expertise of
its members, and second it promotes a sense of ownership over the decisions reached,
something which is likely to contribute to a greater level of acceptance and ownership
of the courses of action chosen and results achieved by group members.
Over the last decade, the use of group decision making in organizations has
increased dramatically, with research into the activity increasing at a similar pace
(Dionne and Dionne 2008). Understanding the possible behaviors that take place
within groups (both small and large) and forming appropriate interaction architec-
tures and protocols to take account of these behaviors have become a problem as
critical as the original goals around which groups are formed (Brodbeck et al. 2007;
Sayama et al. 2011). As a result, some researchers have recently begun to study and
characterize the spatial group decision-making process or SGDMP (Chakhar and
Saad 2014). For example, Couclelis and Monmonier (1995) and Jankowski and
Stasik (1997) have proposed the use of spatial understanding (and decision) support
systems (SUSS/SUDSS), as information technology aids to facilitate the under-
standing of spatial problems and aid decision making within groups, including
among groups embroiled in conflict over spatial issues. When describing SGDMP,
Jankowski and Nyerges (2001) presented a macro–micro-decision strategy frame-
work involving four activities (micro-strategies) over three phases (macro-strategies)
to describe SGDMP. Following this work, in 2004 Nyerges and Jankowski (2004)
presented an SGDMP framework based on Giddens (1991) theory and named it
Enhanced Adaptive Structuration Theory, or EAST. This framework consists of eight
major constructs and seven premises, the aim being to systematically address
research questions, and the subsequent hypotheses related to the dynamics of spatial
information use within groups (Jankowski and Nyerges 2003).
In addition to the aforementioned studies, which have attempted to establish a
theoretic background when describing, studying and characterizing SGDMP, some
scholars have adopted multi-agent system (MAS) concepts to model the role of
stakeholders in the land use planning process, as a specific kind of SGDMP. An
early example of this is the work of Ferrand (1996), who suggested the use of simple
agents representing actors participating in spatial planning processes to simulate the
negotiation process among those actors. However, Ferrand’s study lacked elabo-
ration and has not been implemented on a practical level. Ligtenberg et al. (2004)
proposed a model based on MAS to carry out interactive multi-actor spatial

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planning. To demonstrate the proposed model, the authors applied it to a spatial site
selection problem. In their case study, the involved actors (representing the regional
authorities, farmers’ organizations and environmentalists) jointly attempted to
locate a suitable area for urban expansion. To improve their work, and to deal with
uncertainty in the agents’ decision-making process, they employed a Bayesian
probability network (BPN) (Ligtenberg et al. 2009).
Saarloos et al. (2005), meanwhile, presented an MAS-based planning support
system, to enable decision makers to generate alternative land use plans. As an
extension of this work, Ma et al. (2007) and Arentze et al. (2010) addressed the
problem of how to incorporate uncertainty regarding the future spatial distribution
of competitive and synergetic land uses. To do this, they used the Bayesian decision
network to represent agents’ expert knowledge. Pooyandeh and Marceau (2013)
also developed a spatial web-based development support system by integrating
MAS and fuzzy set theory to generate fuzzy preferences among a group of
stakeholders. The purpose of this system was to help stakeholders reach an
agreement over site selection. They applied this by examining the impact of
incorporating a learning technique within an agent-based negotiation process, the
aim being to improve the agreements made in relation to land development
activities in southern Alberta (Pooyandeh and Marceau 2014). Kamps (2013) also
developed an MAS-based simulation model that linked residential developments to
actors’ bargaining and negotiating power. The housing development process was
simulated based on negotiations between a local planning authority agent and a
private housing agent. Long and Zhang (2015), by defining three types of planning
agent, a non-spatial, spatial and chief planning agent, endeavored to simulate an
urban land use planning process in China. Meanwhile, Ghavami et al. (2016)
investigated the effects of social parameters on the urban land use planning process
with socially rational agents. Social rationality is the rationality of interpersonal
relations and social action; it describes how in social contexts, people not only care
about their own payoff, but also about others’ payoff.
This study differs from previous research in two ways. First, although previous
researchers have shed light on certain aspects of the stakeholder’s role in land use
planning using MAS, the current study adds to these by proposing a more generic
way of simulating SGDMPs. That is, it does not restrict itself to a specific
application domain, instead suggesting the use of a generalized and methodological
framework which addresses the issues involved in simulating SGDMPs when using
MAS. In other words, the proposed framework acts as a guideline for designers and
developers, to help them address possible issues that may arise when simulating
SGDMPs using MAS. It is hoped this approach can be used in future to answer the
following questions: Where do we start the process? What do we model? What are
the most important influencing factors? And what may be the key components
within the simulated environment? Second, the proposed framework also provides a
way of systematically addressing SGDMP-related issues in a descriptive rather than
explanatory manner. It represents, specifies and describes all the necessary concepts
and entities needed to develop a multi-agent-based SGDMP simulation, as well as
the relationships that exist between those concepts. It determines five main

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influences on the simulation process: spatial influence, individual-level influence,

group-level influence, negotiation influence and performance measures.
In terms of the remainder of this article, the next section introduces the key
concepts used and the relationships between them. Then, in Sect. 3 urban land use
planning as a specific spatial planning process is analyzed and the land use planning
scenario derived that used for the simulation. Section 4 presents the results of the
simulation, and then the final section presents the conclusions and gives suggestion
for further research.

2 Conceptual framework

The proposed framework is called the conceptual agent-based framework for

simulating spatial collective (group) decision-making processes, or CaféSCP. It
provides the key concepts and also describes the relations between them in the
MAS-based SGDMP simulation (Fig. 1).

Spatial Influence
Spatial presentation
Dependent on (R2)

Spatial complexity
Scale and time

Acts on (R1)
Is determined by and is dependent on (R3)

Is determined by and is dependent on (R4)

Group-level influence
Individual-level influence: Agents
Group cognition
Individual cognition
Group norms and structures
Personality issues
Group processes
Communicative issues

Negotiation Influence
Game theory
Heuristic
Argument based
Is determined by

Performance measures
Pareto efficiency
Social welfare
Nash equilibrium

Fig. 1 CaféSCP concepts and relations

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The conceptual framework is divided into two main parts. The first part is
devoted to the key concepts involved in the SGDMP simulation, while the second
part describes the relations among the concepts.

2.1 Concepts

As shown in Fig. 1, CaféSCP consists of five main concepts: spatial influence,

group-level influence, individual-level influence, negotiation influence and perfor-
mance measures.

2.1.1 Spatial influence

Spatial problems have unique properties which distinguish them from others
problem types, and these properties can affect different aspects of the group
decision-making process. These unique properties are as follows:
• Spatial presentation Along with researchers such as Kelton et al. (2010) and
Erskine et al. (2013), who have discussed the important influence visual
information has on the decision-making process, some scholars have found that
the way spatial information presented plays an important role in deciding how
effective SGDMP is (Goosen et al. 2014). There are two key ways to present
spatial phenomena. The field view represents space as a continuously varying
distribution of geographical variables, with a raster data model often used to
approximate this view by discretizing an absolute space and subdividing it into
regular intervals. In contrast, the object view focuses on discrete entities which
have a location, some level of spatial extension and attributes and are usually
represented as spatial features (i.e., points, lines or polygons) using a vector data
model (Brown et al. 2005).
• Spatial complexity The existence of the following properties makes spatial
problems more complex:
• The metric properties of space Such properties permit the definition of some
operators giving the angle between two directions, the length of an arc and
the area and perimeter of a region (Worboys 1992). Moreover, the metric
properties of physical space are quite different from the metric properties of
abstract space, so that distances in geographical space are not the same as
Euclidean distances on a plane or in an abstract three-dimensional space.
Furthermore, spatial distances are often defined in a problem-specific
manner (Andrienko et al. 2007).
• Spatial relation: These reflect the complex associations between geograph-
ical phenomena and environments, which are very important to understand
when wishing to resolve geographical issues. Although topology is the most
well-known spatial relation type, there are two other common types of
spatial relationship between geographical features: proximal and directional
(Jones 2014). While proximal relationships describe the distance between
geographical features, directional relationships describe the above–below
and cardinal directions between features (Theobald 2001).

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• Spatial dependency This is the property inherent in Tobler’s first law of

geography (Tobler 1970), which states that ‘‘All things are related, but
nearby things are more related than distant things,’’ which means that
observations are commonly spatially dependent. Therefore, statistical
models that ignore the spatial autocorrelation of geographical variables
may not be effective at predicting the response variable.
• Spatial heterogeneity According to Anselin’s second law, spatial phenomena
exhibit a non-stationary behavior, meaning they are likely to occur locally
rather than generally (Goodchild 2004). This issue needs to be considered
when dealing with spatially related data.

• Scale and time Much information referenced in space is also referenced in time.
Indeed, space, time and process are closely interconnected (Worboys 1994).
Therefore, it is important to consider space and time as a distinct spatial–
temporal concept, to help study, represent, visualize and analyze potential
human activities and interactions in physical space (Bonnell et al. 2016). In
addition, it should be mentioned that each geographical model has its own
appropriate scale and effective spatial–temporal range. If this consideration is
neglected, the results of any analysis will contain some errors.

2.1.2 Individual level: agents

The SGDMP is a decision-making model which includes in groups consisting of

multiple individuals whose aim is to decide what action a group should take about a
specific spatial problem. Therefore, individual-level issues among group members
can affect the outcomes of group decisions. Here, individual-level issues are
classified into three main categories: cognitive, personality and communicative
issues.
• Individual cognition Individuals acquire the information needed to facilitate
problem solving and decision making. Therefore, individual cognition is a
central element in how and what data are acquired, how they are organized
(information) and subsequently assimilated and used (knowledge) within a
group context (Lemon and Sahota 2004). Each decision maker has his or her
own specific cognitive structure and cognitive process for acquiring, retrieving,
manipulating and processing information and data (Hunt et al. 1989). Therefore,
diversity in terms of individual cognition types and levels should be considered
when studying the group decision-making process.
• Personality issues Although there are many different definitions of personality,
it is widely accepted that personality traits are ‘‘habitual patterns of behavior,
thought, and emotion’’ (Querengässer and Schindler 2014). Personal traits
generally consist of the set of behaviors and actions that an individual can be
expected to produce across a variety of group interaction situations. Examples of
personality traits include such qualities as sociability, assertiveness, dominance,

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individual prominence and authoritarianism (Aronoff and Wilson 2014). In

addition, each individual has his or her own personal motives and goals.
Examples of personal motivations include such variables as the need for social
acceptance, affiliation, interpersonal control and self-concept reinforcement
(Hirokawa and Johnston 1989).
• Communicative issues The communicative aspect of a decision maker reflects
his or her ability to produce and manipulate and the strategies used to do so, as
well as how they perceive, learn and interpret the opinions and messages
coming from other agents. The aim of communication is to efficiently
facilitate the creation of a common meaning, interpretation and mental model
and also facilitate understanding between group members (Hirokawa and
Johnston 1989).

2.1.3 Group level

In an SGDMP situation, individual agents should interact with the environment and
other agents in a group context, to achieve their own, individual- and group-level
aims. Therefore, group level factors such as social cognition, group norms and
group processes affect the outcome of an SGDMP.
• Social cognition The process of making decisions in groups, in turn, implies a
social activity. During an SGDMP, it is not known by a member what
requirements and/or desires other members have, how persistent they will be in
claiming a proposal, and what trade-off they will be willing to make when a joint
solution has to be found (Saarloos et al. 2005). Consequently, social parameters
such as altruism and selfishness play an important role in group decision
making. Altruism refers to a willingness to benefit others, even at one’s own
expense (Arentze 2015; Ma et al. 2013). Selfishness, the opposite of altruism,
refers to prioritizing one’s own interests, with a concomitant lack of
consideration for others.
• Group norms and structure The structures and rules adopted by a group are
likely to have a significant influence on the outcome of a group decision-making
process. The structural characteristics of groups include group arrangements,
their size and the role of leaders, and these elements have received much
attention in the study of group decision-making processes (Kameda et al. 2015;
van Ginkel and van Knippenberg 2012).
• Group processes Schwartz (1994), Chen (2005) and Turban et al. (2005)
proposed nine, five and four phases to describe the group decision-making
process respectively. They differ in terms of the structure of communications
that take place within a group and intra-group, and also the way in which
members’ opinions are aggregated. Therefore, the structure, nature (e.g., spatial
or non-spatial) and frequency of communications should be considered in an
SGDMP (Hirokawa and Johnston 1989).

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2.1.4 Negotiation

Negotiation is an integral part of an SGDMP and plays an important role in

resolving conflicts and in facilitating human interactions. Negotiation can be
defined as a discussion between two or more parties with conflicting interests
aiming to reach an agreement (Eshragh et al. 2015). One of the important aspects
of negotiation, which has its root in artificial intelligence, is automated
negotiation, a distributed search in the space of potential agreements, as facilitated
by MAS (Weiss 1999). Three types of approach have been discussed in MAS
literature, as argued by Jennings et al. (2001). These approaches are the game-
theoretic approach, the heuristic-based approach and the argumentation-based
negotiation approach.
• Game-theoretic approach This approach utilizes a set of rules called solution
concepts, to find a strategy for each actor, so as to take the most rational action at
each negotiation step (MacKenzie and DaSilva 2006).
• Heuristic-based approach This is used to cope with the limitations of the game-
theoretic approach (Jennings et al. 2001). Using this approach, agents try to find
a satisfactory, but not necessarily optimal solution. Negotiating agents rate
points in the agreement space based on their utility function and exchange offers
with other parties to find a mutually acceptable agreement.
• Argumentation-based approach This approach allows the agents to exchange
offers, but also the reasons and justifications behind these offers, in order to
mutually influence their preferences across the set of offers made and
consequently the outcome of the dialogue (Marey et al. 2014).

2.1.5 Performance measures

Scholars have proposed a range of performance measures to use with the negotiation
process and its results (Lomuscio et al. 2003; McBurney et al. 2002). The most
prominent performance measure used for negotiation analysis is Pareto efficiency
(Jennings et al. 2001), though there are several other concepts regarded as effective,
though even these simultaneously imply a Pareto optimal solution, such as the social
welfare optimum (Harsanyi 1976; Lang and Fink 2015). In classical game theory
literature, there are also axiomatic solution approaches that are deduced from
desirable properties (axioms) and which are also Pareto efficient. The most famous
of these is the Nash bargaining solution (Nash Jr 1950). Although some of the
proposed performance measures overlap with each other, some of them are specific
to each type of approach.

2.2 Relationships among concepts

The aforementioned concepts tend to influence the SGDMP in an interdependent

rather than independent manner. This section will discuss the interrelationships
among these concepts.

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• Relation 1 (R1): Spatial and individual-level influences: Spatial problems affect

the cognitive and communicative aspects of individual actors engaged in an
SGDMP. Therefore, agents should be able to acquire, perceive and analyze the
spatially related information they are given and should also be equipped with an
appropriate learning mechanism to construct an approximate model of the
surrounding environment.
• Relation 2 (R2): Spatial and group-level influences: The type of spatial problem
being discussed determines how group members come together to work on it.
Under a group decision-making process, actors participate in different phases of
a meeting in order to define the common problem, generate alternatives and
select the best solution. In addition, spatial information, and especially maps, is
used as a means of communication, to facilitate stakeholder dialogue within the
SGDMP. Communications are usually supported by a set of tools with which
stakeholders express their opinions using maps.
• Relation 3 (R3): Individual-level and negotiation influences: These two
concepts reciprocally affect each other. On the one hand, the agents’ existing
computational limitations, their cognitive structures (e.g., beliefs, desires and
intentions) and cognitive processes (e.g., how they process information) are
important in choosing an appropriate negotiation approach. On the other hand,
the specific negotiation approach chosen has a direct impact on the agents’
architecture. For example, if the agents use an argument-based negotiation
approach, then components such as generation, interpretation and the selection
of arguments must be considered when designing a particular agent.
• Relation 4 (R4): Group-level and negotiation influences: Similar to the previous
relation, group-level and automated negotiation influences have a mutual,
reciprocal relationship. On the one hand, the size, structure and arrangement
(having leadership or not) of a group influence the negotiation approach (Marsa-
Maestre et al. 2014), while on the other, the negotiation approach itself will
affect the different aspects of a group. For example, if the agents use an
argumentation-based negotiation, the agents must be allowed to exchange
additional information in the form of descriptions and elaboration, reasoning and
justification.
• Relation 5 (R5): Negotiation and performance measure influences: Some
performance measures are based on game-theoretic and heuristic approaches,
while others are based on the argument-based approach. Thus, the chosen
approach for automated negotiation should determine the performance measures
used.

3 Urban land use planning as a case study

To examine whether CaféSCP is effective and efficient enough to apply in a real-

world setting, the author used it to model the urban master land use plan approval
process in the city of Zanjan, Iran.

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3.1 Spatial problems

An urban master plan, that is, the macro-development plan for a city, encompasses
local economic and social development and manages the spatial distribution of the
urban landscape. Such a plan imparts a heavy responsibility on those experts and
specialists involved in the process to produce high-quality urban plans, both for
today and for the future. In Iran, urban master plans are part of a dominant
paradigm, one which focuses on urban land use distribution so as to organize urban
land development activities, and establish efficient planning methods in Iranian
cities. Urban master plans in Iran (in most big cities except Tehran) are prepared
jointly by municipalities, city councils and provincial offices. According to the
master planning approach, an urban development plan is prepared over three phases,
those clearly described by the Architecture and Urban Development High Council
(AUDHC) under ‘‘Agreement Twelve’’ (AUDHC 2006). According to Agreement
Twelve, the first phase involves studying and developing knowledge of the city
being planned, resulting in the pulling together of basic information such as the
geography, history and economy of the urban area. The second stage involves the
analysis of data obtained during the first stage. The third and final stage involves
producing the development plan itself, including forecasting, making recommen-
dations and developing rules (Maghsoodi Tilaki and Hedayati 2015).
In Iran, when the need to create an urban master plan is recognized by a city’s
municipal office, a request is submitted to the Provincial Organization of the
Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (POMHUD). The POMHUD is in
charge of the creation of urban plans. Having received the application, the planning
and management organization (PMO) should allocate a budget for preparation of the
urban plan. The consulting engineers are then selected based on coordination
between the POMHUD and the PMO and based on the requisite regulations. The
consulting engineer collects basic socioeconomic information, analyzes the current
situation and prepares basic maps. In fact, during this phase, as based on Simon’s
suggested decision-making process, the decision maker collects information about
the problem and identifies its causes.
At the design phase, different local authorities and a technical delegation from
different government agencies attend a meeting of the Technical Bureau of
Provincial Urban Development and Architecture Council, at which alternative plans
are proposed based on the information acquired by the consulting engineer during
the previous phase. The various regulations and some metrics are used to evaluate
the suitability of the different locations for different land use types.
During the choice phase, then first members of the Provincial Urban Develop-
ment and Architecture Council consider the alternative plans and make a final
decision based on negotiations, after which the technical bureau of the High Council
Architecture and Urban Development (HCAUD) section examines and approves the
plan, after which the approved plan is sent to the municipality for implementation.
Finally, the municipality takes on responsibility for implementing the urban plan.

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3.1.1 Study area

Zanjan is the capital of Zanjan Province in Iran and its largest city, the center of
administration, culture, the economy and transportation. It is located in the
northwest of Iran. Its population has seen an increase over recent decades, rising
from 215,458 in 1986 to 386,851 in 2011. The population growth rate over this
period was about 4% (Iran 2012). Most land in the northern part of the city has been
transformed to urban use, to support increased demand. In this study, Golshahr
District was selected as a suitable case study area, to study the preparation and
implementation of an urban master plan using CaféSCP.
Figure 2 shows the study area, which covers 86.35 hectares. The study area was
represented in this study using a raster data model consisting of a lattice of cells
(Cij ) in which i, j are indexes that determine the location of the cell in the lattice.
The cell size selected was 40  40 m, to balance the need to have suitable car-
tographic detail and manageable computational complexity.

3.2 Actors

Those actors involved in the urban master land use planning process and the
decision-making structure are shown in Fig. 3. These actors include the POMHUD,
the consulting engineer, members of the Technical Bureau at the Provincial Urban
Development Council and HCAUD.
As shown in Fig. 3, the land use planning process involves three main stages: (1)
a demand assessment (intelligence phase), (2) a land suitability evaluation (design
phase) and (3) the spatial allocation of land use types (LUTs) (choice phase)
(Abolhasani et al. 2016). The study simulation process focused on the second and
third phases; the demand for different urban land uses was determined, and a
primary configuration of land use was prepared.

3.2.1 Design phase simulation

Taking into account the views of Davidoff on land use planning (Davidoff 1965),
for this study it was assumed that some planners (interested in a particular land use

Fig. 2 Aerial photograph of Zanjan with the study area shown by the red line (GoogleMap 2016)

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POMHUD

Intelligence

Consulting engineer

Technical bureau of provincial urban development and architecture council

Residential Business Educational Medical Green

Design

The provincial urban development and architecture council

Business Educational

Facilitator

Residential Medical

Green

Choice

HCAUD

Fig. 3 Urban master land use planning process (color figure online)

type) participate in the land use planning process and act as advocates for their own
and other related groups’ interests only, much in the way a lawyer represents a
client. Based on this assumption, one planner might develop and advocate a plan
which fulfills the interests of residential developers, while another planner might
develop a different plan representing the interests of commercial developers in the
same area, and so on. Table 1 shows the agents used along with the number of cells
to which each agent can assign its own LUT. The total demand for each land use
assumed in this application was taken from an actual land use plan previously
developed by planning agencies for the study area.
In the model, the members of the technical bureau are expert agents and produce
a suitability map for their associated land use types. These suitability maps analyze
the interactions that take place between locations, development actions and
environmental elements, to classify observation units according to their suitability
for a particular use (Mosadeghi et al. 2015). The suitability map production process
for each expert agent consists of an expandable set of rules, to judge cells based on

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Table 1 Land use classifications and total demand for each land use type
No. Land use (agent) Description Number of
required LUTs

1 Residential Residential areas 180

2 Business Work areas (e.g., offices and shops) 24
3 Educational Educational service areas (e.g., schools, universities) 14
4 Green Green areas (e.g., parks) 58
5 Medical Medical service areas (e.g., health-care centers and hospitals) 12

both their physical and spatial attributes. The particular computing method used for
the suitability maps and the process used for each agent in the application are shown
in Fig. 4.
As shown in Fig. 4, each expert agent (residential, business, educational, medical
and green agent) uses certain basic information—such as compatibility and
dependency, along with an enrichment factor indicator—when a criteria map is
being prepared. The enrichment factor is defined as the ratio of the occurrence of a
land use type in the neighborhood of a location relative to the occurrence of that
land use type in the study area as a whole (de Nijs and Pebesma 2010). An
enrichment factor diagram for the green agent is shown in Fig. 5 as an example.
Figure 5 presents the enrichment factor logarithm as a function of distance for
the green agent. It can be seen that for all LUTs considered, the neighborhood tends
to become less specific with distance from the central cell, while the most specific
neighborhood characteristics are found with neighborhood sizes smaller than 5. It
can also be seen from Fig. 5 that the green agent has a high positive spatial
autocorrelation in small neighborhoods, but that the educational agent has a
negative spatial autocorrelation across the study area. As shown in Fig. 4, the
enrichment factor is used to calculate the incompatibility and dependency metrics
and is specifically used to estimate the influence of distance on the level of
incompatibility and dependency between different LUTs. To illustrate this, Fig. 6

Compatibility matrix Dependency matrix Enrichment factor Street network

1-1 1-2 1-3 1-4

Compatibility Dependency Compactness Accessibility

weights 2-1

Suitability map

Fig. 4 Steps used to calculate the expert agent suitability map (Ghavami et al. 2016)

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Residential Business Educational Medical Green

0.7
0.6
0.5
Log (Enrichment factor)

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
Distance (Cell)

Fig. 5 Enrichment factor logarithms as a function of distance for the green agent

Residential Business Educational Medical Green

0.8
0.7
0.6
Effect value

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Distance (Cell)

Fig. 6 Influence of distance on the level of incompatibility between green land uses and other land uses

shows the influence of distance on the incompatibility of LUTs for green land and
was developed by experts based on the information obtained from the enrichment
factor graph (Fig. 5). The method used to compute the criteria maps, along with the
enrichment factor, is described in ‘‘Appendix.’’
To provide a suitability map for each agent, a five-actor committee was formed in
order to construct the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) pairwise comparison matrix
and also determine the relative weights of the metrics for different agents. AHP is a
structured technique used to organize and analyze complex decisions. It was
developed by Saaty in the 1970s and, according to Malczewski (2006) and Sipahi
and Timor (2010), is the most frequently used procedure for estimating criterion
weights. It has been used for land use suitability analysis by other researchers
(Ceballos-Silva and López-Blanco 2003; Stoms et al. 2002). Using this approach,
after constructing individual AHP pairwise comparison matrixes for all the agents,
the relative importance of the metrics is calculated. The results of this calculation
are shown in Table 2 for this study.
Regarding the information obtained from this calculation (incompatibility and
dependency graphs along with the weighting for each criterion), each expert agent
individually provides a suitability map and then sends it to his associated decision-
making agent.

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Towards a conceptual multi-agent-based framework to… 123

Table 2 Weightings for

Agent metrics C A I D
compactness (C), accessibility
(A), incompatibility (I) and
Residential 0.33 0.17 0.33 0.17
dependency (D), for all agents
Business 0.27 0.46 0.10 0.17
Educational 0.18 0.14 0.42 0.26
Medical 0.47 0.15 0.25 0.13
Green 0.44 0.28 0.12 0.16

3.2.2 Simulation of the choice phase

Members of the Provincial Urban Development and Architecture Council partic-

ipate in the main workgroup meetings for the infrastructure and planning
organization, to make the final planning decisions based on their negotiations. To
simulate this phase, two types of agent had to be defined: a decision maker agent
(DMA) and a facilitator agent (FA). DMAs are the main actors in the urban
planning process and form a collaborative decision-making workgroup to reach
agreement about the spatial configuration of the land uses being discussed.
Furthermore, they have voting power and are able to accept or reject the plans they
receive. The FA is responsible for coordinating DMAs and also providing
appropriate plans for discussion.
In the model, first each DMA receives a suitability map from his own associated
expert agents. Each cell in this map has a CSkij value which represents the suitability
of each cell (i, j) for a specific land use k. Regarding the number of assigned land
uses and the suitability map, each DMA determines the best locations for its own
LUT and names it ‘‘best plan’’. Then, the DMAs send their best plans to the FA. The
FA then revises the existing plan in order to help DMAs reach an agreement. To do
this, the FA divides cells into two categories: (a) fixed cells, the cells for which there
is no conflict among the concerned agents and whose LUTs remain constant during
the meeting, and (b) conflict cells; cells for which there are a number of conflicts
(between two and five) among the agents around them.
Figure 7 presents how the FA divides the study area into two main categories:
fixed and conflict cells. Based on the number of conflicts that arise, the FA appoints
a particular LUT to the conflicting cells. For example, if there is a conflict between
two agents about the LUT for a particular cell, the FA will randomly assign its own
LUT of interest to the cell, intermittently. After the plan has been revised by the FA,
DMAs give their own opinions on the plan. To do this, each DMA compares the
revised plan with its own best plan.
Pn current
k Si
Ea ¼ Pi¼1n best
ð1Þ
i¼1 Si

where Eak represents the evaluation value of agent a for the revised plan around k, n
is the number of cells assigned for the DMA. Scurrent
i , and Sbest
i represents the suit-
ability value for cell i in the current and best plan, respectively. If Eak is greater than

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124 S. M. Ghavami, M. Taleai

Fig. 7 Fixed and conflict cells for the facilitator agent

a predefined threshold (T), the DMA accepts the revised plan. Otherwise, the DMA
rejects it. If all DMAs accept the revised plan, it will be selected as the final plan and
the process finishes. Otherwise, if at least one of the agents rejects the revised plan,
the FA revises it and creates another plan. This process is repeated until all DMAs
reach agreement and accept the plan.
To help the agents come together and consider the fact that human discussion
dynamics naturally change over time (Sayama et al. 2011), it is assumed that a
DMA gradually decreases the value of T over the passage of time. This means each
DMA will show an increased willingness to collaborate with others. This can be
seen as a concession strategy. The concession strategy determines how much each
agent concedes toward opposing agents. Thus, in this model, the size of the
concession is determined by the amount T decreases.
T ¼ 1:003e0:007t ð2Þ

Equation (2) shows that the value of T decreases as time passes, while
t represents the number of rounds passed during a meeting.

4 Results

As mentioned previously, in the model it is assumed that the consulting engineer

provides the initial plan, as shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8 Initial plan

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Towards a conceptual multi-agent-based framework to… 125

Fig. 9 Different metric maps provided by the green agent

During the design phase, each expert agent provides metric maps along with
suitability maps. The different metric maps provided by the green expert agent are
shown in Fig. 9.
After preparing their metric maps, expert agents are willing to prepare suitability
maps for their associated land use type. Figure 10 presents the suitability maps for
different expert agents.
During the choice phase, DMAs utilize the associated suitability maps to give
their opinions (accept or reject) about the revised plan. Figure 12 shows the
opinions of agents during the main workgroup meeting.
As shown in Fig. 11, after 37 rounds of discussion, agents eventually reach an
agreement (the green circle shows the acceptance opinions for the agents).
Figure 12 shows the final, agreed plan.
The final plan is compared with the initial plan in order to determine how much it
will be suitable for the agents, through the consideration of different spatial metrics.
This process is shown in Table 3.
However, as shown in Table 3, for most agents, the final plan produces higher
mean values, though there is an exception to this; for the business agent, the final
plan gives lower values. This is due to the fact that the business agent is the last
agent to accept the FA’s proposal, according to Fig. 11. In fact, this agent decreases
its own gain in order to increase its willingness to collaborate with others and
eventually reach an agreement about the spatial configuration of the different land
use types.

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126 S. M. Ghavami, M. Taleai

Fig. 10 Different agents’ suitability maps for the initial plan

Fig. 11 Agents’ opinions during the main workgroup meeting

Fig. 12 Final, agreed land use configuration

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Towards a conceptual multi-agent-based framework to… 127

Table 3 Mean spatial metrics

Agent Plan C D A I T
values for the initial and final
plans [spatial metrics:
Residential Final 0.55 0.65 0.38 0.48 0.38
compactness (C), accessibility
(A), incompatibility (I), Initial 0.53 0.69 0.36 0.56 0.36
dependency (D) and total value Business Final 0.61 0.51 0.44 0.52 0.33
(T)]
Initial 0.69 0.68 0.62 0.78 0.40
Educational Final 0.66 0.59 0.40 0.55 0.28
Initial 0.87 0.66 0.49 0.84 0.27
Medical Final 0.64 0.67 0.38 0.60 0.47
Initial 0.61 0.72 0.54 0.62 0.45
Green Final 0.62 0.67 0.42 0.52 0.38
Initial 0.43 0.58 0.35 0.52 0.27

5 Conclusion

In this study, the conceptual agent-based framework for simulating spatial collective
(group) decision-making process or CaféSCP was introduced. This approach
consists of five main concepts or building blocks, these being spatial influence,
individual-level influence, group-level influence, negotiation influence and perfor-
mance metrics, then examines the relationships between them. To investigate
whether the CaféSCP model is general and flexible enough to study SGDMP, the
urban master land use approval process in Iran was used as a practical case. The
results of the case described here show that not only is CaféSCP general and flexible
enough to study a variety of SGDMPs, but is also efficient enough to use for
modeling and simulation purposes. It can also be used as a guide when addressing
questions regarding the influence of different factors on the outcome of a group
decision-making process. For example, it can be used to investigate the role of
group-level influence, the role of agents’ communicative abilities and the role of
opponent modeling. Ongoing research should focus on these aforementioned issues.

Appendix

Enrichment factor

In this study, spatial metrics such as enrichment factor are used to prepare spatial
evaluation metrics. Verburg et al. (2004) introduced the enrichment factor to
characterize the neighborhood effect. The enrichment factor is defined as the over-
or underrepresentation of a land use in the neighborhood of a particular location,
relative to the average land use distribution. The enrichment factor of a location is
calculated as follows:
nikd=nid
Fikd ¼ ð3Þ
Nk=
N

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128 S. M. Ghavami, M. Taleai

where Fikd characterizes the enrichment of neighboring cells with LUT k in distance
d of central cell i. nikd is the number of neighboring cells with LUT k in distance d of
central cell i, nid is the total number of neighboring cells in distance d, Nk is the
number of cells with LUT k in the entire study area, and finally, N is the number of
all cells in the study area (van Vliet et al. 2013).
The average neighborhood characteristic for a particular land use type i Flkd is
calculated by taking the average of the enrichment factors for all grid cells
belonging to a certain land use type l, as follows:
1X
Flkd ¼ Fikd ð4Þ
Nl i2L

where L is the set of all locations with land use type l and Nl the total number of grid
cells belonging to this set. In present study, the enrichment factor is presented on a
logarithmic scale in order to obtain an equal scale for all LUTs. This is done by
using Eq. (5).
 
lg Flkd ¼ Log Flkd Þ ð5Þ

where lg Flkd represents the logarithmic value of Flkd .

Compactness

Compactness is an important issue in urban areas. Similar LUTs may have a

supporting and attraction effect on each other. This indicator is already used by
researchers in different ways (Stewart et al. 2004). In this study, the compactness
metric is calculated as:
nik
Cik ¼ ð6Þ
n
where Cik , nik and n are compactness of cell i with respect to LUT k, number of
neighboring cells with LUT k and the total number of neighboring cells, respec-
tively. Cik ¼ 0 if every cell with land use k has no neighboring cell with land use k,
while Cik tends to be at a maximum if all cells with land use k form a single square
region.

Incompatibility

The possible negative effect of some neighboring land uses on the activity of a
specific land use is called ‘‘incompatibility.’’ Each land use type has a certain level
of incompatibility with each other land use type in its neighborhood (Taleai et al.
2007). The incompatibility value of a cell (denoted as Ii ) is defined as:
X
Ini ¼ f1 ðdij Þ  IncCi Cj ð7Þ
j

where IncCi Cj is the level of incompatibility between two land use types Ci and Cj
that is extracted from the incompatibility matrix. Taleai et al. (2007) provided a

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Towards a conceptual multi-agent-based framework to… 129

detailed incompatibility matrix by a surveying method (specifically Delphi method)

in Iran. f1 ðdij Þ is a function that describes how distance influences the incompati-
bility between two land use types. This function is determined by using a combi-
nation of the negative part of enrichment factor diagram and experts’ judgment.

Dependency

In contrast to incompatibility, the possible positive effect of an LUT on another

LUT, such as the effect of residential on green spaces, is called ‘‘dependency.’’ In
other words, often, an LUT needs some other LUTs and activities in its vicinity, in
order to operate properly (Taleai et al. 2014). Similar to incompatibility, the
dependency value of a cell (denoted as Di ) is defined as:
X
Di ¼ f2 ðdij Þ  DepCi Cj ð8Þ
j

where DepCi Cj is the dependency level of two land use types Ci and Cj extracted
from the dependency matrix, and f2 ðdij Þ is the distance function for the dependency.
This function is determined by using a combination of the positive part of enrich-
ment factor diagram and experts’ judgment.

Accessibility

Accessibility to the transportation network is a main important factor for every land
use. In this study, the shortest Euclidean distance to an urban transportation road is
used for calculating the accessibility index. The accessibility index is calculated as
(Karimi et al. 2012):
X
2
1
Ai ¼ ð9Þ
dik=
k¼1 1 þ ak
where Ai characterizes the accessibility value of a cell i, dik is the shortest distance
to transportation road (type k), ak is the importance of accessibility to road type k (in
this study, two types of road are used, the main roads and streets).
The expert agent computes suitability of each cell i (Si ) by using a simple
weighted linear combination (WLC) technique as follows:
Si ¼ WC Ci þ WD Di þ WA Ai  WI Ini ð10Þ
where WC , WD , WA and WI are the relative weights that are assigned to the metrics
Ci , Di , Ai and Ini , respectively.

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