The Taxi Domain (a), and its induced 3-level hierarchy. The base MDP contains 650 states (shown in red), which is abstracted to an MDP with 20 states (green) after the first level of options, and one with 4 states (blue) after the second. At the base level, the agent makes decisions about moving the taxi one step at a time; at the second level, about moving the taxi between depots; at the third, about moving the passenger between depots.