Bottlenecks blocking use of accessibility instruments – Exploring usability, usefulness and institutional barriers

Abstract

Although in the last decades there has been significant attention and investment into Planning Support Systems, very few have actually made it into practice. This phenomenon is mirrored within the domain of accessibility instruments, a specific subset of the Planning Support Systems (PSS) family. Literature suggests that a fundamental dichotomy between supply and demand of PSS could be the main reason for this. On the one hand, planning practitioners – potential users of instruments – are generally unaware of and inexperienced in the use of them. On the other hand, developers of instruments have little awareness of demand requirements for instruments in the complex planning context in which the instruments have to be applied.