Cockpit Social Infrastructure

Web-based geographic information systems (GIS) and planning support systems are widely adopted as digital tools to support planning practices. The respective solutions tend to be isolated implementations aimed at a single planning purpose due to the specific requirement concerning their data, methodology, involved stakeholders etc. With data platforms, GIS infrastructures and the possibility to use web-based software that relies on open standards, creating a planning support infrastructure is more feasible than ever. Such infrastructures can create opportunities for governments to draw on existing systems and create the potential to improve planning practices through enhanced information and analysis. This paper describes the development of the Cockpit Social Infrastructure, a planning application that serves as an interface between Hamburg’s Urban Data Platform and the municipal planners of social infrastructure. Its unique institutional setting as well as its reliance on an open standard software architecture make it a unique case for potential planning support infrastructure.

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Equip the warrior instead of manning the equipment: Land use and transport planning support in the Netherlands

Journal of Transport and Land Use ◽

10.5198/jtlu.v3i1.99 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Marco Te Brommelstroet

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Planning Process ◽

Regional Level ◽

Planning Support Systems ◽

Transport Planning ◽

Planning Practice ◽

Web Based ◽

Planning Support ◽

Insight Into ◽

Shed Light

This paper assesses the embedding of land use and transport instruments—Planning Support Systems (PSS), models and tools—in Dutch planning practice, in order to shed light on how planning practitioners perceive these instruments and to ascertain the reasons and manner of their (lack of) utilization. These insights provide much-needed input to improve support instruments for integrated land use and transport planning, particularly during early planning phases and on the regional level. The research adds to the emerging literature on PSS. It builds on general insights into bottlenecks that block the use of PSS in practice, and employs a user-oriented approach to gain more insight into how users perceive these bottlenecks and how they relate to specific land use and transport PSS. Much of the existing research geared toward improving these instruments has a technical focus on adjusting the intrinsic workings of the instruments themselves. However, the way in which they are embedded in planning practice has remained largely ignored and poorly understood. Based on data from a web-based survey administered to land use and transport practitioners in the spring of 2007, this paper describes how LUT instruments are embedded in planning practice and how they are perceived by the planning actors in land use and transport planning. The findings suggest that a technical focus is insufficient to improve the implementation of these instruments. The key bottlenecks, identified by the survey, actually are centered on "softer issues," such as lack of transparency and poor connections to the planning process. The closing analysis and discussion offer some potential remedies for these shortcomings.

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