DEVELOPMENT OF A KNOWLEDGE-BASED DECISION SUPPORT FRAMEWORK FOR MRT EXPANSION/DEVELOPMENT PLANNING IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

To improve the connectivity of Singapore, various MRT expansion and extension projects are on-going or in the horizon. The planning of these projects are carried out by the LTA. A whole-of-government approach was adopted for the planning of MRT expansion and/or development, to ensure that major stakeholders such as the URA, HDB and JTC are integrated into the planning process, to provide their inputs to ensure that the rail network integrates with land uses. However, it was evident that other stakeholders such as NGOs, residents and general commuters were not properly informed and integrated into the planning process and the problem is amplified through the case of the Cross Island Line. Decisions on the Cross Island Line was initially made, before information became available to the public. These resulted in many debates and an alternative alignment has to be considered. Therefore, it is crucial that information should be available to all the stakeholders before any decision made, and integrate these stakeholders into the planning processes. The MRT expansion and/or development planning is a complex process and the potential of Knowledge Based Decision Support System (KBDSS) for such processes are explored in this study. This research aims to propose a KBDSS framework and then incorporating findings on stakeholders, their information needs, factors influencing their decision making process into the framework. Interviews and a survey questionnaire was conducted and analyzed to serve as input to the KBDSS framework. Future works are required to build a knowledge base for the KBDSS for MRT expansion and/or development planning as this research focuses on the framework and it contributes only a small part to the data base and knowledge base subsystem.