Agent-based diffusion model for an automobile market with fuzzy TOPSIS-based product adoption process

This paper focuses on the product diffusion in a competitive automobile market. Since purchasing a car is costly, the consumers in the market tend to behave like rational decision makers. They naturally compare the attributes of cars (e.g., brand preference, fuel economy, safety, comfort) and make overall decisions. In this paper, we propose an agent-based (AB) diffusion model consisting of tens of thousands of interacting agents. In the model, an agent represents a consumer and bases its multi-attribute decision-making on fuzzy TOPSIS. The decision-making process integrates three purchasing forces: expert's product information provided by mass media, subjective weights on product attributes assigned by individual consumers, and social influence (i.e., information delivered from a consumer's neighbors who have already adopted products). The AB model executes the agents and observes the collective behavior. In this sense, the model can assist in the analysis of the complex market dynamics. We conducted an empirical study to verify the performance of the AB model. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.