Traffic routing for evaluating self-adaptation

Toward improving the ability to evaluate self-adaptation mechanisms, we present the automated traffic routing problem. This problem involves large numbers of agents, partial knowledge, and uncertainty, making it well-suited to be solved using many, distinct self-adaptation mechanisms. The well-defined nature of the problem allows for comparison and proper evaluation of the underlying mechanisms and the involved algorithms. We (1) define the problem, (2) outline the sources of uncertainty and partial information that can be addressed by self-adaptation, (3) enumerate the dimensions along which self-adaptive systems should be evaluated to provide a benchmark for comparison of self-adaptation and traditional mechanisms, (4) present Adasim, an open-source traffic routing simulator that allows easy implementation and comparison of systems solving the automated traffic routing problem, and (5) demonstrate Adasim by implementing two traffic routing systems.