Analyzing Police Patrol Routes with the Simulation of the Physical Reorganization of Agents

In this article we describe a tool for assisting the investigation of different strategies of agent physical reorganizations. We show how the tool was used in the public safety domain for helping in the study of strategies of preventive policing. An agent society that simulates criminal and police behavior in a geographical region was constructed. In this society, artificial agents representing the police are the responsible to avoid crimes. The organizational structure of the police is characterized by the existence of a centralized command that has the task of distributing and redistributing the police force in a region according to an analysis on crime and the factors that influence it. The simulation of different strategies of physical reorganization makes it feasible to better understand the influence that different police patrol routes have on the reduction of crime rates.