Koen van Dam

Background

Koen van Dam (1978) is a research fellow at Imperial College London where he develops agent-based models of socio-technical infrastructure systems, particularly energy and transport networks in urban areas.

He works on the Digital City Exchange project. His contributions focus on developing an agent-based model of city systems based on spatial and temporal data from multiple sectors. The model can then be used to experiment with the impact of local interventions on system-level performance, providing valuable decision support for the design of new services. Other projects include the Climate KIC Smart Sustainable Districts project, where simulation models help shape future urban neighbourhoods together with local stakeholders, and resilience.io in which models give new insights in the provision of clean water and sanitation infrastructure in Accra, Ghana. For EDF he recently completed a project on the generation of spatially and temporally explicit demand profiles for heat and electricity.

Previously, Koen worked as post-doc in the Energy & Industry group at the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). He was visiting researcher in the Urban Energy Systems project at Imperial College in London as well as at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of the National University of Singapore. He was also the president of Eurodoc, the European council for doctoral candidates and young researchers, and board member of other organisations representing early stage researchers.

After obtaining his pre-university (VWO) high school diploma at the Goois Lyceum in Bussum he studied for his MSc degree in Artificial Intelligence at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He graduated with a specialisation in Knowledge Engineering. On the 30th of October 2009 he successfully defended his PhD thesis "Capturing socio-technical systems with agent-based modelling" and was awarded a doctorate from TU Delft.

A detailed CV is available on request.

Research

Main research interests:

Agent-based modelling and simulation of socio-technical infrastructure systems in cities

The Digital City Exchange (DCE) project funded by RCUK deals with the integration of various city infrastructure systems through a data and modelling platform to be able to provide new services which are based on better understanding of interaction between subsystems and the impact of interventions. Using simulation models based on data, future states of the system can be predicted and the effect of interventions analysed. Case studies include linking transport and energy infrastructures through electric mobility. By simulating journeys of electric vehicles in a transport network (with inputs including land use and agent behaviour) and linking this with an optimisation model of the electricity distribution grid (including electricity prices and carbon content) it becomes possible to analyse the impact of charging loads on the grid and propose smart charging services and behavioural change. This also leads to insights on the design of smart grids, urban planning, infrastructure rollout and energy management of distributed resources and related governmental and institutional policies.

In the Smart and Sustainable Districts (SSD) project funded by Climate KIC agent-based models are being developed to support local districts in London, Paris, Berlin and Utrecht to design and manage new low-carbon districts. Future Cities Africa (FCA) is a project funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) where a case study on Accra in Ghana models the demand for water and sanitation infrastructure under various socio-demographic scenarios which are connected with optimisation models to give insights in the potential to provide better access to safe drinking water through new infrastructure investments. The prototype model has been presented to local stakeholders in Ghana in a workshop setting to help them use the model to plan possible interventions and test various future scenarios.

Other research themes

In addition to city modelling, other research themes include the following: Consumer acceptance of smart energy technology, social systems engineering for smart cities, and bio energy supply chain modelling linked to life-cycle analysis and environmental modelling.

PhD project: Modelling Infrastructures as Multi-Agent Systems.

The aim of this project was to develop an approach and building blocks that can be used to describe how actors that control and use an infrastructure (which is a socio-technical system) work together in a hierarchical, coordinated, cooperative or non-cooperative way. This framework can then be used to compare different control mechanisms for a certain infrastructure and to give guidelines for the application of a control method that proved to be successful in one infrastructure in another type. The idea was to make multi-agent models of various infrastructures to reach this goal.

Additionally, it is interesting to analyse decision making (an essential part of any type of control) and how decisions made on one level influence decisions on other levels. Decisions made for low-level optimisation might not contribute much to the global system and decisions made at system level might not always be good at lower levels. The goal of this project is trying to find a way to better analyse these effects of emergent behaviour and help preventing negative effects so that system level optimisation is possible even in decentralised and privatised institutions.

A generic ontology has been been developed that formalizes concepts which play a role in energy and industrial network, but that can be more widely applied to other socio-technical systems. The use of a shared ontology makes it possible for different building blocks in the model to work together and to do experiments with different setups of the network, but social and physical changes. This ontology and generic building blocks are now being applied to case studies in the energy domain, but also on intermodal freight traffic, for example.

The results of this work were published in the PhD thesis "Capturing socio-technical systems with agent-based modelling".

Scientific Publications

O’Connor, J., Z Gurguc and KH van Dam. Reinforcing the Social in Social Systems Engineering – Lessons Learnt from Smart City Projects in the United Kingdom, to appear in Garcia-Diaz and Olaya (Eds.) Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity, John Wiley & Sons, Series in Computational and Quantitative Social Science, in print, 2017

Bustos-Turu, van Dam and Shah, Exploring the influence of household behaviour on energy demands with an agent-based model, accepted for the Social Simulation Conference 2016, Rome, Italy, September 2016.

X. Wang, K.H. van Dam, C. Triantafyllidis, R. Koppelaar, N. Shah. Water and energy systems in sustainable city development, Proceedings of the Urban Transitions Conference, Shanghai, September 2016.

Bustos-Turu, Guo, van Dam, Acha, Shah, Incorporating LCA indicators into optimal electric vehicles charging strategies: An integrated modelling approach, proceedings of ESCAPE26, the European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, June 2016

Delval, Guo, van Dam, Stray, Haigh, Gorgens and Shah, Integrated multi-level bioenergy supply chain modelling applied to sugarcane biorefineries in South Africa, proceedings of ESCAPE26, the European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, June 2016

Clifford, van Dam, Bustos-Turu and Watson (2016) Decision support for the evaluation of sustainable urban masterplans, Energy Systems Conference, London, UK, 14-15 June 2016

Koen H. van Dam, Xiaonan Wang, Rembrandt H.E.M. Koppelaar, Charalampos Triantafyllidis, Wentao Yang and Nilay Shah. Agent-based Modelling of Urban Water and Sanitation Infrastructure Use in GAMA, Ghana, 1st workshop on Agent Based Modelling of Urban Systems (ABMUS2016) at AAMAS2016, Singapore, May 2016

G Bustos-Turu, KH van Dam, S Acha, CN Markides, N Shah. Simulating residential electricity and heat demand in urban areas using an agent-based modelling approach 2016 IEEE International Energy Conference (ENERGYCON), Leuven, Belgium, 4-8 April 2016

KH van Dam, Flipse and van der Sanden. Towards a simulation-based decision support tool for social aspects of innovation project management, poster at the Social Simulation 2015, the Eleventh Conference of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA), Groningen, the Netherlands, 14-18 September 2015

SM Flipse, KH Van Dam, J Stragier, TJC Oude Vrielink, MCA Van der Sanden. Operationalizing responsible research & innovation in industry through decision support in innovation practice. Journal on Chain and Network Science 15 (2), 135-146, 2015

KH van Dam and Bustos-Turu. A methodology for simulating synthetic populations for the analysis of socio-technical infrastructures, Proceedings of the Social Simulation Conference 2015, the Eleventh Conference of the European Social Simulation Association (ESSA), Groningen, the Netherlands, 14-18 September 2015

Bustos-Turu, G., Acha, S., van Dam, K.H. & Shah, N. (2015) Assessing trade-offs in electric vehicle smart charging strategies through agent-based simulation and multi-objective optimisation. 17th British-French-German Conference on Optimization, 15-17 June, 2015, London, UK.

G Bustos-Turu, KH Van Dam, S Acha, N Shah. Integrated planning of distribution networks: interactions between land use, transport and electric vehicle charging demand. Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Electricity Distribution (CIRED), Lyon, France, 15-18 June 2015

Koen H. van Dam, Dietmar Koering, Gonzalo Bustos-Turu and Henry Jones. Agent-based simulation as an urban design tool– Iterative evaluation of a smart city masterplan, Digital Economy Conference, London, December 2014

G Bustos-Turu, KH van Dam, S Acha, N Shah. Estimating plug-in electric vehicle demand flexibility through an agent-based simulation model, Proceedings of IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies, Europe, Istanbul, Turkey, 12-15 October 2014,

KH van Dam, MCA van der Sanden, J Stragier. Strategic decision support for marketing communication: an agent-based simulation of consumer attitudes to smart home appliances, Proceedings of the Social Simulation Conference, Barcelona, 1-5 September 2014

Bustos-Turu, G., van Dam, K.H., Acha, S., Shah, N. (2014) A systems approach to understanding the impact of electric vehicle charging infrastructure on grid services. Energy Systems Conference, London, UK, 24-25 Jun 2014

Koen H. van Dam, I. Nikolic and Z. Lukszo (Eds.) Agent-Based Modelling of Socio-Technical Systems, Springer, ISBN 978-94-007-4932-0, 2013

M CA Van Der Sanden, KH Van Dam, J Stragier, C Kobus. Simulation based decision support for strategic communication and marketing management concerning the consumer introduction of smart energy meters. ESSACHESS-Journal for Communication Studies vol 6, No 1(11), 2013

Acha, S. and KH van Dam. Modelling electric vehicle mobility in energy service networks. In Acha, S. Modelling Distributed Energy Resources in Energy Service Networks. IET Press, Renewable Energy 16. London, UK, 2013

M Van der Sanden, KH Van Dam, J Stragier. Professionalization of organizational communication by means of decision support systems and simulation, Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap, Rotterdam, January 2013

S Acha, KH Van Dam, N Shah. Spatial and temporal electric vehicle demand forecasting in Central London, Proceedings of 22nd International Conference on Electricity Distribution Electricity Distribution (CIRED 2013), Stockholm, 10-13 June 2013

S Acha, KH van Dam, N Shah. Modelling spatial and temporal agent travel patterns for optimal charging of electric vehicles in low carbon networks. Proceedings of 2012 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting, San Diego, CA, USA. 22nd -26th July 2012.

KH van Dam, O Tsinalis, A Sivakumar, N Shah, Y Guo, JW Polak. Introducing a model composition platform for urban energy and transport systems. Proceedings of the Agent Technologies in Energy Systems workshop (ATES2012) at AAMAS, Valencia, Spain

KH van Dam, S Acha, A Sivakumar, JW Polak, N Shah. Smart cities through data, models and services–a model exchange platform. Proceedings of Digital Futures Conference, Abderdeen, UK, 2012

James Keirstead and Koen H. van Dam. A survey on the application of conceptualisations in energy systems modelling. In P.E. Vermaas and V. Dignum, editors, Formal Ontologies Meet Industry (FOMI2011), volume 229 of Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, pages 50--62. IOS Press, Delft, the Netherlands, 7--8 July 2011. ISBN 978-1-60750-784-0. [bib]

Salvador Acha, Koen H. van Dam, James Keirstead, and Nilay Shah. Integrated modelling of agent-based electric vehicles into optimal power flow studies. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference and Exhibition on Electricity Distribution (CIRED2011), Frankfurt, Germany, 6--9 July 2011. [bib]

Behzad Behdani, Koen H. van Dam, and Zofia Lukszo. Agent-based modelling for disruption management in industrial networks and supply chains. In Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), pages 157--162, Delft, the Netherlands, 11--13 April 2011. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam and James Keirstead. Re-use of an ontology for modelling urban energy systems. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Infrastructure Systems and Services: Next Generation Infrastructure Systems for Eco-Cities (INFRA), Shenzhen, China, 11--13 November 2010. [bib]

Maarten C. A. van der Sanden and Koen H. van Dam. Towards an ontology of consumer acceptance in socio-technical energy systems. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Infrastructure Systems and Services: Next Generation Infrastructure Systems for Eco-Cities (INFRA), Shenzhen, China, 11--13 November 2010. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam and Emile E. J. Chapping. Coupling agent-based models of natural gas and electricity markets. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Agent Technologies for Energy Systems (ATES 2010), pages 45--52, 11 May 2010. [bib]

James Keirstead and Koen H. van Dam. A comparison of two ontologies for agent-based modelling of energy systems. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Agent Technologies for Energy Systems (ATES 2010), pages 21--28, 11 May 2010. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam and Zofia Lukszo. Model factory for socio-technical infrastructure systems. In R. R. Negenborn, Z. Lukszo, and J. Hellendoorn, editors, Intelligent Infrastructures, volume 42 of Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering, pages 25--52. Springer, 2010. ISBN 978-90-481-3597-4. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam. Capturing socio-technical systems with agent-based modelling. PhD thesis, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands, 2009. ISBN 978-90-79787-12-8. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Zofia Lukszo, and Rajagopalan Srinivasan. Agent-based decision support for failure-prone networked infrastructures. International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 5(4):323--339, 2009. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Zofia Lukszo, and Rajagopalan Srinivasan. Abnormal situation management in a refinery supply chain supported by an agent-based simulation model. In Rita Maria de Brito Alves, Claudio Augusto Oller do Nascimento, and Evaristo Chalbaud Biscaia, editors, Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering --- PSE2009, volume 27 of Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering, pages 2097--2102. Elsevier, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 16--20 August 2009. ISBN 978-0-444-53472-9. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Arief Adhitya, Rajagopalan Srinivasan, and Zofia Lukszo. Critical evaluation of paradigms for modelling integrated supply chains. Journal of Computers and Chemical Engineering, 33(10):1711--1726, October 2009. [bib]

Igor Nikolic, Gerard P. J. Dijkema, and Koen H. van Dam. Understanding and shaping the evolution of sustainable large-scale socio-technical systems --- towards a framework for action oriented industrial ecology. In M. Ruth and B. Davidsdottir, editors, The Dynamics of Regions and Networks in Industrial Ecosystems, pages 156--178. Edward Elgar, July 2009. ISBN 978 1 84720 742 5. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Arief Adhitya, Rajagopalan Srinivasan, and Zofia Lukszo. Nuances of benchmarking agent-based and equation-based models of an oil refinery supply chain. In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Infrastructure Systems (INFRA 2008): Building Networks for a Brighter Future, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 10--12 November 2008. [bib]

Zofia Lukszo, Koen H. van Dam, Margot P. C. Weijnen, and Gerard P. J. Dijkema. Agent-based models for crisis management. In H. Bouwman, R. Bons, M. Hoogewegen, M. Janssen, and H. Pronk, editors, Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom, Essays in commemoration of prof.dr. Rene Wagenaar, pages 281--299. IOS Press, May 2008. ISBN 978-1-58603-879-3. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Arief Adhitya, Rajagopalan Srinivasan, and Zofia Lukszo. Benchmarking numerical and agent-based models of an oil refinery supply chain. In Bertrand Braunschweig and Xavier Joulia, editors, Proceedings of the European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering ESCAPE 18, volume 25 of Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering, pages 623--628. Elsevier, Lyon, France, 1--4 June 2008. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Michiel Houwing, Zofia Lukszo, and Ivo Bouwmans. Agent-based control of distributed electricity generation with micro combined heat and power --- cross-sectoral learning for process and infrastructure engineers. Journal of Computers and Chemical Engineering, 21(1--2):205--217, January/February 2008. [bib]

Emile J. L. Chappin, Gerard P. J. Dijkema, Koen H. van Dam, and Zofia Lukszo. Modeling strategic and operational decision-making --- an agent-based model of electricity producers. In Proceedings of the 21st annual European Simulation and Modelling Conference (ESM2007), St. Julian's, Malta, 22--24 October 2007. [bib]

Ackchai Sirikijpanichkul, Koen H. van Dam, Luis Ferreira, and Zofia Lukszo. Optimizing the location of intermodal freight hubs: an overview of the agent based modelling approach. Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology, 7(4):71--81, August 2007. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Zofia Lukszo, Rajagopalan Srinivasan, and Iftekhar A. Karimi. Opportunities for agent-based models in computer aided process engineering. In Valentin Plesu and Paul Agachi, editors, Proceedings of the European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering ESCAPE 17, volume 24 of Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering. Elsevier, Bucharest, Romania, 27--30 May 2007. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Zofia Lukszo, Luis Ferreira, and Ackchai Sirikijpanichkul. Planning the location of intermodal freight hubs: an agent based approach. In Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), pages 187--192, London, England, 15--17 April 2007. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam and Zofia Lukszo. Modelling energy and transport infrastructures as a multi-agent system using a generic ontology. In Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), pages 890--895, The Grand Hotel, Taipei, Taiwan, 8--11 October 2006. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Zofia Verwater-Lukszo, Jaap A. Ottjes, and Gabriel Lodewijks. Distributed intelligence in autonomous multi-vehicle systems. In- ternational Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 2(2/3):261--272, March 2006. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Michiel Houwing, Zofia Lukszo, and Ivo Bouwmans. Modelling an electricity infrastructure as a multi-agent system -- lessons learnt from manufacturing control. In Wolfgang Marquardt and Costas Pantelides, editors, Proceedings of the 16th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering and 9th international symposium on Process Systems Engineering (ESCAPE-16 and PSE2006), volume 21 of Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering, pages 1741--1746, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, 9--13 July 2006. Elsevier. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Igor Nikolic, Zofia Lukszo, and Gerard P. J. Dijkema. Towards a generic approach for analyzing the efficiency of complex networks. In Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), pages 745--750, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, 23--25 April 2006. [bib]

Igor Nikolic, Gerard P. J. Dijkema, Koen H. van Dam, and Zofia Lukszo. General methodology for action-oriented industrial ecology: complex systems approach applied to the rotterdam industrial cluster. In Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), pages 831--836, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, 23--25 April 2006. [bib]

Crelis F. Rammelt, Igor Nikolic, Jan Boes, and Koen H. van Dam. Complex systems approach to `development aid'. In Proceedings of the 11th Annual International Sustainable Development Research Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 6--8 June 2005. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam, Jaap A. Ottjes, Gabriel Lodewijks, Zofia Verwater-Lukszo, and Rene Wagenaar. Intelligent infrastructures: distributed intelligence in transport system control --- an illustrative example. In Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC), pages 4650--4654, the Hague, the Netherlands, 10--13 October 2004. [bib]

Koen H. van Dam. Design of a generic ontology translator --- implemented for jade. Master's thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2002. [bib]

The complete list of publications is also available in BibTeX format. Publications can be sent on request.

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