Assessment Method for Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Development

In Europe, different road authorities have to face the ever increasing pressure to integrate their road network service provision with - often conflicting - different trends and conditions such as congestion, climate change, individualism, urbanization, safety, environmental issues and economic growth. There is also a need to cooperate with different stakeholders, such as interest groups, municipalities, industries, citizens and governments at different levels. Therefore, road authorities are seeking for innovative approaches to collaborate with these stakeholders concerning spatial and infrastructure planning. To assess the integrated spatial and infrastructure development, the Dutch National Road Authority Rijkswaterstaat has developed a method that analyses the added value of integrated designs and plans to clarify the societal relevance of collaborative planning. The method is a combined approach for multi-modal infrastructure and spatial development, called the ‘Assessment Method for Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Development’ (AMSPID). In ten steps the method uniformly and integrally takes into account different kinds of measures, including those which impacts cannot be monetized or quantified. AMSPID comprises an assessment tool which is combined with a digital workshop. With the tool and the workshop all stakeholders can share their view on the different infrastructure or spatial projects or measures and can give their scores on the different relevant aspects. This makes it a valuable addition to the normal planning process and it speeds up the policy making process. Furthermore, when used carefully, the combination is very powerful in drafting new policy measures or creating a new transport policy program.