AGENT-BASED MODELING AND SIMULATION FOR RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE SMART CITY PLANNING IN SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia is at the same time working towards rapid urban transformation, digitalization, climate adaptation, the modernization of its infrastructure, and an improvement in the quality of life. The fact that it has set these aims leads to a planning problem which cannot easily be solved by using general forecasting methods since the results of urban development result from the interactions between households, travelers,firms,utilities,public agencies, infrastructure, and environmental conditions. This review looks at the role of agent-based modelling and simulation in helping to achieve resilient and sustainable smart city planning in Saudi Arabia. It draws together peer-reviewed literature published between 2020 and 2025 on agent-based modelling, urban digital twins, transport, energy, infrastructure resilience, and the development of smart cities in Saudi Arabia. The review makes use of a structured integrative approach which involves transparent database searching, thematic coding, methodological appraisal, and cross-domain synthesis, without stating any unverified figures for the number of studies screened. The findings indicate that agent-based methods are especially useful for depicting heterogeneous behaviour, testing disruptive scenarios, examining policy feedbacks, and connecting individual-level decisions to overall system outcomes. Yet the usefulness of such models depends on behavioural validity, calibration, uncertainty analysis, data governance, interoperability, and clear documentation.