Denver Smart Places Decision Support System INTRODUCTION 
This document describes the Smart Places Decision Support System. Smart Places was developed in conjunction with a partnership of public and private investors formed to advance sustainable development planning. The Smart Places partnership included the City and County of Denver, Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation, Public Service Company of Colorado, Governor’s Office of Energy Conservation, Environmental Protection Agency (Region VIII), Urban Consortium Energy Task Force, and Electric Power Research Institute. The software called Smart Places developed as a result of the Smart Places Project provides customized community planning and sustainable indicator evaluation. 

SYSTEM OVERVIEW 
Smart Places makes possible interactive urban design and infrastructure specification using a hands-on "What-If" approach. For example, a community designer may ask the question "What if I place a block of single-family homes with a centrally located recreation facility?" Smart Places allows the designer to sketch in the design using familiar landmarks, aerial photos, and other features as references. The designer specifies key attributes of the new community components (i.e.: average floor space, heating technology, etc.) The designer might then ask "What would the energy requirements be for this community?" or "What are the emissions implications for this particular design?" The Smart Places system allows the user to select evaluation criteria from a number of features and indicators. The system provides immediate answers to questions relating to transportation, energy, emissions, wastewater, water requirements, etc. The designer might then ask "What if I modify this design to ..." and the sequence repeats itself, allowing the user to iterate between design experimentation and "What-if" evaluation. 

The system will support a wide range of user experience and expertise, from a computer novice to a software development expert. The user can select or change the user interface "expertise level" at any time. 

Smart Places used the community redevelopment efforts relating to the Stapleton Airport site as a pilot for the system . However, the system easily accommodates any site at any scale for sustainable community planning. 

SYSTEM AVAILABILITY 
The Smart Places Decision Support system will be available for community design projects in 1997. 

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY 
Smart Places is a user approachable, sustainable development process in software. The system is open; this means that it can be viewed, modified and applied to suit individual needs. It uses programs, language and methods which make it both powerful and robust. The creators of the system are many, all of whom share the idea that future generations of the system can be adapted to meet new challenges and solve different problems. What follows is a set of design plans from which the first systems were created, and which may help illustrate the content that might be included in the next generations. 

SMART PLACES PROCESS 
Using the system to plan the future of a community begins with extensive collaboration between utility providers, city or county agencies, consultants and regulatory agencies. A map of the proposed project is created using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Community resource requirements for each of seven features (landuse, energy, transportation, communications, water, waste water and solid waste) are entered. The features can be quickly modified to create a successive design which performance is again evaluated. Each scenario of community performance is evaluated in terms of resources consumed and waste products produced. The process is repeated until community performance goals are met. Examples of key indicators of community performance are total energy, water or air emissions. 

TERMINOLOGY 
A common language has been developed for describing the functional components and capabilities of the Smart Places systems. Key terms are given below: 

Proposal Scenario 

An interactively generated spatial design. The scenario carries with it a set of assumptions for each proposal component (geographic feature). A set of proposal components describes a community development option. 

Proposal Themes 

Any one proposal may consist of a number of types of objects (Buildings, streets, utility services, etc.). Each proposal type will represented in a separate ArcView theme.Themes are overlaid to show the composite proposal. 

Proposal Theme Component 

Any theme within a proposal may contain many components ( example: multiple buildings) 

Pocket Attributes 

Evaluation of proposals will require consideration of a number of attributes corresponding to each proposal component. For example, for a proposed landuse, each instance of a landuse type (residential, mixed use etc) might possess the characteristics of land area, energy, water, wastewater, solid waste and total persons. Each proposal component will carry its own set of inherited attributes which may have unique values. 

Feature 

An evaluation class which represents a priority for the decision making process. Each class is a category for which data, measures and indicators are assembled for evaluation of a community development scenario. For example, in the community planning process features might include Landuse, Transportation, Energy, Communications, Water, Wastewater, and/or Solid Waste. 

Indicator 

A specific descriptor or objective within a feature evaluation class. For example, mode diversity might be a specific objective (indicator) for the Transportation feature. 

Measure 

A formula by which a feature is evaluated with respect to a particular indicator. For example, one might use vehicle vs pedestrian routes as a measure of mode diversity within the Transportation Feature. 

Evaluation Process (Information Stock) 

An equation, an existing or created model, or an index into a data table which implements a measurement. 

Link Indicator 

The outcomes produced from an evaluation process. 

Value 

A specific value or a range of values which represent the goal for a Link Indicator. A weighted score which reflects both the degree of achievement of a goal and its relative importance. This will allow comparison of various proposal scenarios. 

Example Landuse Cast  

Feature:

• Landuse

• Residential
• Commercial
• Mixuse

• Acres
• Structure Units
• Energy
• Water
• Wastewater
• Solid Waste
• Persons

Information Stock:

• Persons/Household
• Floor to Area Ratio (FAR)
• Dwelling Units/Acre
• Kilowatt Hours/Structure/ Mo 
• Gallons of Water/Capita/Day
• Pounds Solid Waste/Capita/Day
• Pounds Emissions/Kilowatt Hour
• Pounds Emissions/Structure Process/Year
• Pounds Emissions/Ton of Solid Waste

Link Indicators:

• Combined Landuse (Acres/Type)
• Combined Energy (MMBTU)
• Combined Emissions (Lbs/Type)
• Combined Water (Gallons)
• Combined Wastewater (Gallons)
• Combined Solidwaste (Tons)

The system hardware should be selected with both economy and performance in mind. IBM compatible machines with 32 MB memory running Windows NT 4.0 or WINDOWS 95 were used to develop and use the system in Denver. Portable machines can best serve presentation needs to key decision makers. A valued asset for the system is production color plotting capacity which permits rapid use of alternative development scenarios by decision makers. 

System function for the Smart Places Decision Support System can be divided into two primary interaction modes: 1) proposal scenario development and 2) proposal evaluation. Proposal scenario development encompasses interactive creation, editing, and documentation for community designs. Proposal scenario evaluation includes selection and identification of indicators for evaluating and comparing the community designs. 

 

Key components planned for system development to support both scenario development and design evaluation include: 

• Proposal Scenario Development: 
• Integration of new or additional site data 
• Customized user interaction screens for a range of user expertise 
• Menu selection of design landmarks and reference maps 
• Interactive scenario design and modification 
• Creation of attribute loaded proposal components 
• Link to groupware decision making tools

• Proposal Scenario Evaluation: 
• Integration of evaluation processes (indicator data and models) 
• Computation of region summaries 
• Selection of analysis features through menu and query delineation 
• Display and selection of indicators relating to selected features 
• Display and selection of measurement formulas 
• Calculation and retrieval of linked indicators 
• On-Screen Display of results: 

Analytical results


Graphic (map) results 
Decision process and rationale

• Plotting and Export of results in standard format

INTEGRATION OF SPATIAL DATA 

• Pilot project data includes geographically referenced images and coverages 

• Spatial data is limited to image files and ArcView shape files (polygons, lines, points). All other spatial data formats should be converted to the shape format for use in this system. 

• Several viewing scales are used including the regional (study area) scale, site scale, district scale, and specific area scale within a district. 

CUSTOMIZED USER INTERACTION SCREENS 

• A range of user interfaces were developed for different user levels (novice user, ArcView-familiar user, developer, etc.). Any user may select the level at which he wishes to interact. The full function user interface is at the developer’s level. Lower level interfaces are subsets of the developers interface and are user selectable.  INTERACTIVE SCENARIO BUILDING

• Allows user to interactively create a proposal design 

• Sketch proposal 

• Select sketch type from a menu such as road, building , etc. (makes the appropriate theme active, makes the theme editable, selects proper sketch tool (line, point, polygon) based on theme type) 

• Edit sketches 

• Select edit type from a menu (makes the appropriate theme active, makes the theme editable) 

• Need a stop editing function 

• Allows select, move, resize, stretch vertex, delete, split? 

• Allows cut/copy/paste within themes and between like themes 

• Restriction themes 

• Specific themes can be designated as restriction themes. If the user violates a condition contained in a restriction theme while developing a proposal scenario, he is notified that there is a potential conflict. 

CREATION OF POCKET ATTRIBUTES 

• Evaluation of proposals requires consideration of a number of attributes corresponding to each proposal component. For example, for a proposed building might need to know type, # of stories, type of insulation, energy source, etc.) 

• Attributes are assigned/updated as each component is created or edited 

• Smart Places users can also modify attributes of previously generated proposal components 

COMPUTATION OF REGION SUMMARIES 

• Retrieve summary information on user-delineated areas. Compare between two or more user-delineated areas. User component attributes to compute summary information. 

INTEGRATION OF EVALUATION PROCESSES 

• As proposal designs are created, user evaluates the proposal based on a set of predefined indicators 

• A database of feature-indicator-measurement-model combinations are maintained 

• A model can be in any one of the following forms: 

• Custom built Avenue script 

• Stand-alone Windows application launched from ArcView 

• A look-up table of model results 

SELECTION OF MEASUREMENT FORMULAS 

• Each proposal design is evaluated. The user can delimit the scope of the evaluation by interactively selecting appropriate features, indicators, and measurement formulas. 

• For any one evaluation, multiple indicator-measurement pairs may be selected for each feature. 

ON-SCREEN DISPLAY OF RESULTS  

• Analytical results 

• Graphic (map) results 

• Decision process and rationale 

• Display results of an evaluation sequence 

PLOTTING AND EXPORT OF RESULTS 

• The system provides mechanisms for easily producing hardcopy and digital results which document a scenario development and evaluation session. 

 

BRW 
California Energy Commission 
City and County of Denver 
Colorado Governor's Office of Energy Conservation 
Colorado Public Utilities Commission 
Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) 
Cymbiotics 
Denver Regional Council of Governments 
Denver Regional Transportation District 
Denver Water Board 
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) 
Environmental Defense Fund 
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) 
KOA Radio 850/Jacor 
Mosaic Management Group 
OP Graphics 
Public Service Company of Colorado 
Science Applications International Corporation 
Stapleton Development Corporation 
Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation 
U.S. Department of Energy Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region VIII 
University of Colorado 
University of Denver 
Urban Consortium Energy Task Force 
US West Communications 

Principal Technical Advisors  
CIESIN - Brenda Faber and Keith Croteau 
City and County of Denver - Steve Foute, Randy Schnicker, Roger Johnson 
EPRI - Paul Radcliff 
California Energy Comission - Nancy Hanson 
Mosaic Management Group - Thom Slagle 
University of Denver - Amy Keeley and Chris Holtkamp 
USDOE - CESD - Ken Snyder 
Denver Smart Places - Dave Skiles 
Public Service Company - Orlando Reyes 
Denver Regional Transportation District - Dave Shelly 
US Environmental Protection Agency, Region VIII - Dave Schaller 
Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation - Alan Brown 

Project Participants  
CIESIN 
Cymbiotics 
Electric Power Research Institute 
Public Service Company of Colorado 
Colorado Governors Office of Energy Conservation 
U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency, Region VIII 
University of Denver 
University of Colorado 
Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation 
Stapleton Development Corporation 
City and County of Denver 
Urban Consortium Energy Task Force 
Public Technology Incorporated 
Clarion Associates 
Denver Regional Council of Governments 
Denver Regional Transportation District 
Mosaic Management Group 
Science Applications International Corporation 
Environmental Systems Reserach Institutute 
California Energy Commission 
City of Scottsdale, Arizona 
Colorado Public Utilities Commission 
Environmental Defense Fund 
U.S. DOE Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development 
BRW 
OP Graphics 
Denver Water Board 
KOA Radio 850 / Jacor 
US West Communications