Agreement technologies for supporting the planning and execution of transports

The use of agreement technologies in the planning and execution of goods transports is analyzed. We have previously suggested an approach called Plug and Play Transport Chain Management (PnP TCM) that provides agent-based support for key tasks, such as, finding the best sequence of transport services for a particular goods transport, monitoring the execution of the transport, and managing the interaction between the involved actors. In this paper we analyze five agreement technologies in the context of PnP TCM, i.e., semantics, norms, organizations, argumentation and negotiation, and trust. We conclude that all five technologies play a critical role in the realization of PnP TCM