Toward a multi-scale participatory urban policymaking platform : co-designing Mass Transit using LEGO bricks, open data, and interactive pixels

Abstract

Rapid urbanization and industrialization around the globe have brought urban policymakers complex challenges such as chronic congestion, environmental pollution and socio-economic inequalities. With the rising adoption of and sophistication of social media and personal electronic devices, citizens are increasingly voicing their expectations and hearing those of others from near and afar on what they expect of their city governments. The planning and policymaking of the urban environments and transit systems, due to their complexity and traditional dependence on proprietary tools, have been, by-and-large, a process restricted to those who are deemed as "domain experts". As citizens demand more transparency of, and participation, in the urban planning process, how might policymakers reshape their traditional decision-making processes, to not just align the expectations of diverse interests, but also to make more informed policies by harvesting relevant data from the collective intelligence? This paper documents the creation and evaluation of an interactive, multi-scale, dual-interface transit information system that combined a LEGO-based Tangible User Interface (TUI), Augmented Reality (AR), and cloud computing-based, and interactive data visualizations into a new type of interface aimed at enabling the process of participatory planning. The prototype system used Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) planning in Boston as a pilot case and allowed trial users to see, create, compare and evaluate new transit scenarios. We found potential in the systems to not just convey knowledge related to the chosen topic, but also support social learning and induce change in behavioral intention.