Online Interactive Public Participation for the Built Environment

Abstract

Construction projects, especially infrastructure projects, create such a far and wide local impact that it is essential to carry out public participation processes. With the advancement of information technology, it is now possible to digitalize the public participation process and carry out the process via the internet. Through the development of an online public participation process, attempts were made to reach a wider audience, to create open communication channels and to involve the public throughout the design process of the project.
This thesis research investigated the development of online public participation process and studied its impact on the project performance of intra-city street redevelopment projects. The research was separated into three stages. The first stage of the research focused on introducing the online interactive public participation process. Literature research was carried out on the principles of public participation, current public participation methods and relevant developments in the field. In the second stage, a comparative case study of four inter-city infrastructure projects was conducted. Two of the projects implemented the online public participation process while the other two projects used traditional public participation methods. The purpose of the case study was to evaluate the online interactive public participation process' influence on project performances. In the third stage of the research, an evaluation process was designed by the researcher to improve the online interactive public participation process. The evaluation process used the House of Quality decision matrix as the theoretical basis and can process the incoming public comments in a structured manner and produce a ranked list with implementation suggestions.
The research concluded that: As a public participation tool with a high level of involvement, the 'online interactive public participation process', when used in intra-city street redevelopment projects, will improve the efficiency in the design process, increase public satisfaction, shorten project time and raise the project cost. Recommendations on the use of the online interactive public participation process and the proposed evaluation process were made based on the findings of the research. Discussions were also made regarding research reflections, learnings and further research suggestions respectively.