Agent-based simulation of consumer occupancy distribution in shopping centers

Abstract

Where are the most frequented areas inside a shopping center? The answer to this question can help us find the optimal places to put advertisement, set its price, or even optimize the locations of the stores. This work studies the applicability of simulation techniques to the clients’ circulation inside a shopping center. For that a software capable of integrating the various techniques and showing the results of the simulations is built. We use the agent-based simulations where the consumers will be emulated by autonomous entities called agents who have a set of characteristics and behaviors that support their decisions. The navigation of the agents inside the shopping center and the search for the best path is done by the A* algorithm. To show the distribution of the occupancy of the consumers within the shopping center, heat maps are used with a color scale ranging from yellow, meaning less frequented areas, to red, meaning the most frequented areas. This software not only proved to be able to find the most frequented areas, but also find them for the various segments of the population, which allow us to know what segment of the population should the advertisement, of the different areas of the shopping center, target.