A Virtual Environment for the Formulation of Policy Packages

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2-2014

Abstract

The interdependence and complexity of socio-technical systems and availability of a wide variety of policy measures to address policy problems make the process of policy formulation difficult. In order to formulate sustainable and efficient transport policies, development of new tools and techniques is necessary. One of the approaches gaining ground is policy packaging, which shifts focus from implementation of individual policy measures to implementation of combinations of measures with the aim of increasing efficiency and effectiveness of policy interventions by increasing synergies and reducing potential contradictions among policy measures. In this paper, we describe the development of a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of different configurations of policy measures in order to build policy packages. By developing systematic approaches it is possible to examine more alternatives at a greater depth, decrease the time required for the overall analysis, provide real-time assessment and feedback on the effect of changes in the configurations, and ultimately form more effective policies. The results from this research demonstrate the usefulness of computational approaches in addressing the complexity inherent in the formulation of policy packages. This new approach has been applied to the formulation of policies to advance sustainable transportation. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords

Agent-based modelling; Decision support systems; Policy formulation; Policy packaging; Transport policy; Virtual environments

Discipline

Political Science | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice

Volume

60

First Page

53

Last Page

68

ISSN

0965-8564

Identifier

10.1016/j.tra.2013.10.017

Publisher

Elsevier

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2013.10.017

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