A review of planning support systems for urban land use planning

Abstract

This paper reviews the research work on a relatively particular area -planning support systems (PSS) for urban land use planning (ULUP) from their emergence to the present. To aid readers' clear understanding of PSS, its definition is discussed in the beginning. The review summarizes the development of PSS from two perspectives: system components and system application. In terms of system components, namely, the major theories and technologies serving for building the PSS such as related planning theories, GIS and decision support systems (DSS) technologies are reviewed respectively. With respect to system application, the paper discusses in detail their application to urban (land use) planning and other specialized planning separately. Based on this systematic overview, the characteristics in different times, especially current advantages and shortcomings of the PSS are indicated. Moreover, several new research trends in the PSS area are also highlighted for guiding researchers in future studies. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.