A Heuristic Approach for Exploring Uncertainties in Transport Planning Research

ABSTRACT

This literature review aims to identify situations of uncertainty from differing perspectives of transport planning research. It elaborates a heuristic framework based on three potential sources of uncertainty: reality, knowledge, and products. The heuristic approach focuses on the way in which uncertainties are first identified as part of the planning context and process, then translated into planning artifacts and concepts, and finally managed in the selection of planning options and effects. We illustrate how this framework can provide a useful tool for theoretical and empirical research in transport planning.

KEYWORDS:

• Information management
• communicative approach
• stakeholders’ perspective
• complexity
• urban transport planning

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the discussion, which was key to the final output.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía (regional government of Andalusia, Spain) under grant P12-RNM1514 (research project “Tools for assessing urban mobility scenarios against climate change –MITIGA–”)

Notes on contributors

Miguel L. Navarro-Ligero

Miguel L. Navarro-Ligero is a candidate for PhD in Civil Engineering of the Universidad de Granada (Spain), in the area of Spatial Planning and Environmental Assessment. He has contributed to research projects regarding climate change mitigation, sustainable mobility and development of future scenarios. The potential integration of future scenarios in urban and transport planning is the main topic of his thesis.

Julio A. Soria-Lara

Julio A. Soria-Lara is Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain. He has led international and national research projects, often in consortia with practice. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed international publications in the interface between urban planning, transport studies, and human geography.

Luis Miguel Valenzuela-Montes

Luis Miguel Valenzuela-Montes is Associate Professor of Urban and Spatial Planning at Universidad de Granada (Spain). Leader of the research cluster on territorial synergies (CLUSTER), his main research topics are related to the evaluation of planning scenarios and the integration between transport and urban development.