Participatory evaluation in transport planning: The application of Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis in co-creation to solve mobility problems in Brussels

Abstract

Public participation has become increasingly common in transport planning. However, citizens are often only included in the first stages of the planning process, i.e. problem identification and design of solutions. Using co-creation, governments can make the whole planning process more inclusive by involving citizens in each step of the process, including the evaluation and implementation of solutions. Participatory evaluation methods such as Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) allow the public to participate in ex-ante evaluation. This chapter analyses the application of MAMCA in a co-creation process to evaluate co-designed solutions to traffic problems in Brussels, Belgium. The research shows that co-creation leads to new, more diverse alternatives for evaluation. Furthermore, MAMCA contributes to a co-creation process by making stakeholder priorities explicit and by ranking solutions on their impact on stakeholders. Limitations of MAMCA in co-creation include a lack of stakeholder representativeness as well as non-cooperation of stakeholders in the evaluation process.