Combining System Dynamics and Performance Management to Support Sustainable Urban Transportation Planning

In a global context characterized by a growing and rapid urbanization, achieving a good performance in the urban transportation domain is closely linked to the pursuit of sustainability, seen as the ability to satisfy social needs – i.e. improving quality of life – without compromising the ability of the future generation to satisfy theirs. Addressing sustainability assumes to deal with certain social characteristics – namely pluralism, institutional fragmentation and uncertainty – that makes the challenge complex. In order to deal with this complexity, literature embarked the road of developing detailed models to support planning activities and decision-making processes. However, a number of limits raised with reference to the usefulness of these models to planning processes. This paper suggests an innovative planning approach tailored to complex urban transportation systems. This approach is based on the Performance Management theory and the System Dynamics modelling.