A Web-Based Public Participation System that Supports Decision Making

抄録

Public participation in making decisions regarding urban development projects is very important. In Japan, local governments must develop policies concerning area management based on discussions with local citizens rather than depending on the central government. Therefore, workshops with stakeholders have been conducted to discuss issues relating to urban projects, where visual tools, as well as the Internet - in a few cases - were used as a tool for collecting opinions. However there is a need to build an advanced Decision Support System (DSS) that facilitates a participative design process and expands stakeholder participation.
A web-based public participation system is introduced via this case study. Stakeholders utilize a developed system to visualize proposal alternatives, using virtual reality to provide their opinions, and then to share collected information and results. The proposed DSS aims to enhance the decision making processes by encouraging citizen involvement and participation during the project's developmental stages. The evaluation reveals that using effective visual and opinion collecting tools can motivate effective citizen participation while giving transparency and legitimacy to the decision making process. Utilizing the proposed DSS at workshops in conjunction with the Internet makes the collected opinions more reliable.