Contact Deutsch
Climate-neutral City Homepage

SIMPLE AD Evaluator - S.I.M.P.L.E. Sustainable Integration Modeling and Predictive Leveraging Evaluator

The SIMPLE AD Evaluator fills an existing gap in sustainable local planning by provi­ding a low-threshold and collaborative evaluation tool for early planning phases. By linking questionnaires with System Dynamics models, the tool delivers well-founded decision-making foundations and customized sustainability checklists. This supports municipalities, project developers, and decision-makers in achieving a strategic and cost-efficient sustainable transformation from concept to implementation.

Short Description

Background and Motivation

Many municipalities are suffering from great development pressure - dealing with challenges based on social and technical needs and with limited financial capacities. In addition, they have to comply with overarching sustainability goals (e.g. SDGs, spatial planning concepts). 

In order to make viable decisions for sustainable community development, goals and frameworks need to be defined together, and expert knowledge is essential. Certificates for building and neighborhood based on assessments promise planning and decision support. These certification systems, as well as available pre-assessments, are able to assess concrete projects based on elaborated plans and designs.

In practice decision makers often deal with different planning alternatives, not yet specified in detail. The assessments based on certifications are linked to external audits during the assessment process, not focusing on the involvement of decision makers or project developers. These external audits are time and cost intensive processes and are therefore usually only used for larger projects.

There is a gap assessing project ideas and rough concepts within early planning phases. Moreover there are no possibilities for self assessments of planning alternatives that do not require external reviews and focus on cooperative planning processes, i.e. ideas and innovations based on project developers, community representatives, local experts and citizens.

Individuals with uncertainties provide assessments to the 'S.I.M.P.L.E. AD Evaluator' system, which analyzes the data. The result is displayed as a circular diagram with sustainability, social, and industrial factors, marked with a green success indicator.
Fig. 1: Joint system description and definition of sustainability criteria and framework conditions; e.g. in the course of ÖEK processes (own illustration) (Copyright: SIMPLE AD Evaluator)

Goals and Innovation

This project therefore aims to develop the concept study for a planning and decision support tool for evaluating "spatial sustainability" - the AD Evaluator. This enables planning stakeholders in all planning phases to evaluate planning alternatives, taking into account impacts and interactions, and at the same time identifies necessary measures to achieve objectives in the form of checklists.

Methodological Approach

The AD Evaluator enables sustainable spatial transformation from the idea to realization with a focus on strategic co-design and co-assessment. Project developers and decision-makers (municipality, state, federal government) can use the low-threshold approach of the AD Evaluator to carry out independent assessments to compare alternatives.

The AD Evaluator thus offers time- and cost-efficient planning support even for very early planning phases, where new ideas and innovations for sustainable spatial transformation can be introduced, and robust framework conditions and objectives can be strategically developed.

The AD Evaluator is implemented in Python, which enables a modular structure and easy transfer to other programming environments for later extensions and developments. The objectives and the planning project are mapped on the basis of questionnaires. The questionnaires are linked to System Dynamics models, which can weigh up impacts and interactions and enable an evaluation.

Fig. 2: Iterative, automated evaluation process for planning and construction projects. Individuals with uncertainties provide inputs to the 'S.I.M.P.L.E. AD Evaluator' system. The system analyzes the data and generates circular diagrams with relevant factors. The results are incorporated into various planning documents (e.g., land use plan or zoning plan changes).
Fig. 2: Automated evaluation of planning and construction projects as an iterative process; e.g. for changes to zoning plans, development plan changes, specific construction projects (own illustration) (Copyright: SIMPLE AD Evaluator)

Expected results

The concept study visualizes spatial impacts and creates customised sustainability checklists. This makes it easier to implement global and regional sustainability goals in practice.

Project Partners

Project management

Dr. Julia Forster - TU Wien, Institute for Spatial planning, Research Unit of Local Planning, Spatial Simulation Lab

Project or cooperation partners

  • adasca eU
  • Stephan Stückler

Associated Partners

  • KEM Energieparadies-Lavanttal
  • KLAR! Klimaparadies-Lavanttal
  • NÖ Dorf- und Stadterneuerung GmbH

Contact Address

Dr. Julia Forster, TU Wien, Institute of Spatial Planning
TU Wien E280-4
Karlsplatz 13
A-1040 Vienna

Tel.: +43 (1) 58801-280431
E-mail: julia.forster@tuwien.ac.at
Web: www.tuwien.at/ar/simlab