Serious gaming as a tool to communicate planning support systems: The case of resource potential mapping in airport regions

Due to the growth of cities and airports, regional planning becomes increasingly important in airport regions. As major resource consumers, these regions have to become more sustainable to consolidate their competitive position amongst global cities. In the Amsterdam-Schiphol region, stakeholders are searching for new governance arrangements to address these new planning issues. However, stakeholders seem to favour arrangements of a similar style and with a similar focus as the present ones. This makes it difficult for novel arrangements, using other types of planning support information, to enter the agenda. In the case of the Amsterdam airport region, interviews with stakeholders showed that they do not easily recognize the relevance of a potential new planning support system based on resource planning. ‘Resource potential maps’ are based on an analysis of resource flows in a particular area, and of the opportunities to minimize these flows, close loops and make them more sustainable. We have developed a serious game to let stakeholders experience this resource perspective on airport region planning. In this paper we report on the first experiences with this game that has been played with stakeholders from the Amsterdam-Schiphol region.Multi Actor SystemsTechnology, Policy and Managemen