The Effectiveness of Crowdsourcing Public Participation in a Planning Context

Abstract

In late 2009, the Next Stop Design project was launched to test the crowdsourcing model in a public participation context for transit planning. Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving and production model largely in use for business. It leverages the collective intelligence of online communities by soliciting ideas and solutions for an organization from these communities through the form of an open call. Next Stop Design was an online competition where users submitted bus stop shelter designs and voted on the designs of peers to determine a best design. The project provided an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of crowdsourcing as an alternative public participation method for government administration. Online public participation alternatives are increasingly the focus of governments seeking to overcome deficiencies in traditional public participation methods, and the specific online method of crowdsourcing is a promising ideation tool for participatory decision-making. To test Next Stop Design's effectiveness as a public participation tool participants were interviewed to determine their perceptions of the project. In all, 23 Next Stop Design participants were interviewed via instant messenger for this study. Findings presented here suggest that Next Stop Design was perceived to be a generally effective online deliberative democratic process, with perceived weaknesses concerning the facilitation of the project through public voting and the equality of participants on the site in light of apparent voting fraud in the competition.