The simulation of planning decisions

An approach to the simulation of planning decisions is presented in which techniques based on control systems analysis are used. Planning decisions are defined to be those taken by officially instituted bodies subsequent to the adoption of an official plan and in order to implement it. These decisions are in response to applications for action from the public. These decisions are assumed to be adequately represented by the mean and standard deviations of the distribution of time delays involved. These two parameters are in turn posited to be influenced by feedback, feedforward and comparison with a standard plan effects. These influences are subsumed in a Monitoring functional block, which is modelled by a set of multiple linear regression equations. The decision-making or Regulation functional block is represented by Laplace functions which makes it convenient for computer simulation. Input functions are derived from the hypothesis to be tested or theoretical considerations. The advantages of the method appear to lie in its concise form and ease of manipulation even though the system simulated is an adaptive control system. Computer simulation models are notorious for their unwieldy size (number of equations) which in turn makes intervention and manipulation of parameters impractical. The proposed model attempts to alleviate this problem by simplifying the procedure involved.