A GIS-based multicriteria spatial decision support system for planning urban infrastructures

Abstract

The planning of urban infrastructures has important spatial implications. The evaluation of alternative courses of action in this setting requires the explicit consideration of multiple criteria as they have important social, economic, and environmental effects. This paper presents a decision support system aimed at offering the users (e.g., government or municipal agencies) a flexible and user-friendly environment to provide decision aid in urban infrastructure planning. The visualization of available alternatives on maps provides a value-added for decision support processes in urban infrastructure evaluation problems. The development of this system has been motivated by a real world urban case study. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.