The Role of Decision Support Systems (DSS) in Transportation

Abstract

In line with EU regulations, the Italian Government started the reform of public local transport in order to transfer competences to Regional and Local Administrations and to move to a competitive tendering system. To pursue the reform at the local level it is crucial to define a common framework (by sharing information and a quantitative methodology) where Regions and Local Administrations can operate. Decision support systems (DSS) and information systems are valuable tools to support these activities and, in general, transportation planning. An information system, such as the one Poliedra-Politecnico di Milano is designing for the Lombardy Region and its Plan of Mobility and Transports, has to accomplish the following tasks: • the monitoring of the Plan, by comparing information among different years, Administrations or fields (e.g. public or freight transport), also in relation to standard reference values; • its assessment, to check the performance of the Plan as a whole and of each field and to reveal possible imbalances and critical situations; • the appraisal of projects, to introduce homogeneous informative contents into the projects; this helps to carry out project assessment according to a standard and transparent procedure and provides the decision maker with appropriate tools to identify priorities; • the appraisal in the tendering process, to define the tendering scheme and the criteria to evaluate offers.