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 agent-based 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 larger numbers of agents. Therefore the latter approaches can be considered useful only when the results are expected to deviate from the results of populationbased 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 agentbased simulation just can be replaced by population-based simulation. The paper evaluates this assumption by a detailed comparative case study in epidemics.