Kicker: a decision support tool for multi-modal traffic based on multi-agent systems

KICKER is a joint project between the Information Systems Division of Italian Railways (FS S.p.A.) and the Computer Science Department at the University of Genova, Italy. It is based on the results of the EuROPE-TRIS project (Guida, 1998) and its aim is to realize a decision support system to be used by train control coordinators, working along European lines, in the management of freight trains traffic towards multi-modal centres of shipment. The realization of KICKER is carried out using CaseLP, a prototyping environment for software applications modelled as Multi-Agent Systems. CaseLP combines well established prototyping techniques, based on traditional software engineering approaches with the innovative paradigm of Multi-Agent Systems, that suits very well the realization of distributed, dynamic and heterogeneous software applications. The paper outlines the KICKER project, presents the principal features of CaseLP and summarizes the results that have been obtained till now.