Mapping with stakeholders: An overview of public participatory GIS and VGI in transport decision-making

Transport decision-making problems are typically spatially based and involve a set of feasible alternatives with multiple evaluation criteria. Besides, transport decisions affect citizens’ quality of life, as well as specific interests of general stakeholders (e.g., transport companies), thus needing a participatory approach to decision-making. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have the ability to visualize spatial data and represent the impact of location based transport alternatives, thus helping experts to conduct robust assessments. Moreover, with the recent diffusion of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and development of Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) platforms, the process can be enhanced thanks to the collection of a large amount of updated spatial data and the achievement of an active community participation. In this study, we provide an overview based on a structured literature review of the use of VGI and PPGIS in transport studies, exploring the fields of application, role played by GIS, level of public involvement and decision stage at which they are applied. From the overview’s results, we propose a general framework for the evaluation of transport alternatives using GIS from a multiple stakeholder point of view; the main conclusion is the usefulness of the integration between Public Participation, GIS and quantitative evaluation methods, in particular Multi Criteria Decision Analysis, in order to foster technically sound and shared decisions.