Abstract
Contextual factors have been consistently argued as influencing the usefulness of planning support systems (PSS). Whereas previous studies were mostly conducted within a single planning project or based on experimental workshops, the present study looked at the application of PSS in smart city projects worldwide, and investigated the extent to which subjectively measured contextual factors contribute to PSS usefulness in smart cities. Based on a recent international questionnaire (268 respondents) designed to gather the perceptions of scholars and practitioners in the smart city realm, an ordinal regression model was fitted to assess the associations between the argued contextual factors and PSS usefulness. The results show that, in general, four contextual factors—namely the characteristics of the technology itself, user characteristics, characteristics of the planning process, and political context—have a significant influence on the usefulness of PSS, and that their impacts vary significantly. This paper emphasizes that only when PSS users can identify the critical contextual factors that are favorable and unfavorable, will the potential benefits of PSS for spatial planning be fully achieved.
Highlights
Recent years have seen a plethora of discussions and studies on how big data infrastructure, accrued through sensors, and associated information and communication technologies (ICTs) can help achieve sustainable development goals and improve the management of cities (Geertman and Stillwell 2020; Pan et al 2019; Thakuriah et al 2017; Khan et al 2015; Caragliu et al 2011)
The pseudo-R2 statistics measures the success of the model in explaining the variations in the data, which is an indication of the strength of the association between the dependent and the independent variables
The results of the present study suggest an association between contextual factors and planning support systems (PSS) usefulness, namely that, in general, “characteristics of the technology,” “user characteristics,” “characteristics of the planning process,” and “political context” have a significant influence on the usefulness of PSS, their impacts vary significantly in practice
Summary
Recent years have seen a plethora of discussions and studies on how big data infrastructure, accrued through sensors, and associated information and communication technologies (ICTs) can help achieve sustainable development goals and improve the management of cities (Geertman and Stillwell 2020; Pan et al 2019; Thakuriah et al 2017; Khan et al 2015; Caragliu et al 2011). Studies have shown that with the advent of urban sensing and ubiquitous computing, and the gradual standardization of embedded location information within administrative datasets on urban activities, the promise of a smart city has led to an exponential increase in data by several orders of magnitude (Geertman and Stillwell 2020). Such enormous volumes of data, or big data, act as valuable input for PSS. PSS enabled by smart ICTs help enhance reach and range by enabling information to be shared across different stakeholders and contribute to aspects of the planning process, including data collection and storage, data analysis and presentation, plan- and policy-making, interpersonal dialogue and debate, and policy implementation and administration (Jiang et al 2020b; Pettit et al 2018; Zhang et al 2019; Thakuriah et al 2017)
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