Decision Support System in Public Transport Planning for Promoting Urban Adaptation to Climate Change

Abstract

Current land use policy in developed countries result in many new constructions sites and urban development. Depending on the geodesign solutions, newly developed areas may influence their citizens to use private or public transport. Therefore, to design more resilient and eco-friendly neighbourhoods, it is important to incorporate public transport planning at the early stage of urban planning. In order to promote urban adaptation to climate change it is crucial to activate citizens to participate in decisions making process related to the common space and available facilities. Suitable for this purpose are the right tools for the presentation of various design solutions. This group of tools is called decision support systems. The aim of the research is verification of the suitability of the use of decision support system (CommunityViz) for public transport planning at the level for a master plan (local planning). The paper presents the possibility of using the CommunityViz system to create various scenarios of accessible public transport. Simulations were performed on the newly designed housing area in San Sebastian (Spain). The designed model for the neighbourhood was used during the workshop with citizens of San Sebastian, to incorporate their knowledge as local experts. Based on the master plan, three scenarios of bus stops location were proposed. The dynamic model enabled to assess how many citizens may probably live in acceptable distance to bus stops, which may reflect the number of people for whom public transport may be an attractive solution for transportation needs. The results showed high usefulness of the analyzed decision support system to solve the problem of public transport designing. Intuitive graphical presentation makes different variants clearly identified by all stakeholder groups.