Introduction: The world is facing multiple challenges, e.g. in the realm of health, urbanization, climate change and social inclusion. Mobility can be part of the problem yet has the potential to be part of the solution. Serious games can support decision-making in a complex environment. This paper describes a serious game that aims to stimulate individual learning of (future) professionals in transport and urban planning, and facilitate discussions on goals and arguments concerning different (new) mobility options. Methods: This paper presents the first version of the serious game: ‘the Optimal Mobility Mix’. This card game was developed and played in five sessions in the Netherlands, India and the USA with over 100 participants. Feedback was collected informally in a debrief, through a survey (N = 25) and through observation. Results: During the game, participants formed small groups and collaborated to select a mobility mix using playing cards that aligned with the five societal goals (effective mobility, efficient city, economy, environment & health and equity), of the 5E framework (Van Oort et al., 2017). The survey indicated that the game was highly interactive, fun and relevant. Although the game's ‘reflection of reality’ scored relatively low, it still remained positive. Conclusions: Overall, the game successfully facilitated discussion on societal goals and transportation modes and appears positive on its learning objectives. The effect of the game in policy and decision making practice will be tested in future research. Striking a balance between capturing the complexity of reality and creating an accessible and flexible model for professionals to interact with – in the form of a game, is an ongoing challenge. Future developments aim to involve key players and broader planning-related policies through a codesign process with game design iterations. To support this process, observations and recordings can be intensified to improve feedback processing.

Many cities and regions have embraced the concept of transit-oriented development (TOD). This paper explores how transfer of TOD as a policy concept impacts its implementation in the Netherlands. The study determined international policy ideas and tools that have contributed to implementation and tested them with Dutch experts using workshops, serious gaming and design charrettes. The findings suggest a number of factors complicating policy transfer, and that ‘softer’ transferable lessons (e.g., good actor relationships, information sharing) are much more difficult to transfer than ‘harder’ technical tools. Using policy lessons and tools in learning exercises helps to develop contextually appropriate policy solutions.

Studies in the Planning Support Systems (PSS) debate are increasingly paying attention to the support function of PSS. This involves among other things studying the usefulness of PSS to practitioners. This paper adds another dimension to this evolving debate by arguing that planning tasks should receive more attention. Although planning tasks are central in several PSS definitions, they have hardly received explicit attention in empirical studies. In an aim to fill this void we conducted an empirical study based on the perspective of task-technology fit. The latter consists of a combination (‘fit’) of analytical and communicative support capabilities (‘technologies’), and three types of planning tasks: exploration, selection and negotiation. Next, we selected four case studies in the Netherlands, in which the same PSS was applied, which consists of a combination of the CommunityViz software and a touch-enabled MapTable. The cases differed in the planning tasks that were central during the workshop, resulting in different kinds of usefulness attributed to the PSS. For instance, in one case with a selection task the communicative support capabilities contributed to the transparency of the process, whereas in another the analytic support capabilities of the PSS improved the task of negotiation because of the iterative feedback it provided. The paper concludes with the observation that the concept of task-technology fit has potential be applied in different contexts and with different types of PSS.