Agent-Based And Population-Based Simulation: A Comparative Case Study For Epidemics

This paper reports a comparative evaluation of population-based simulation in comparison to agentbased simulation for different numbers of agents. Population-based simulation, such as for example in the classical approaches to predator-prey modelling and modelling of epidemics, has computational advantages over agent-based modelling with large numbers of agents. Therefore the latter approaches can be considered useful only when the results are expected to deviate from the results of population-based simulation, and are considered more realistic. However, there is sometimes also a silent assumption that for larger numbers of agents, agent-based simulations approximate population-based simulations, which would indicate that agent-based simulation just can be replaced by population-based simulation. The paper evaluates this assumption by a detailed comparative case study in epidemics.