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A framework for integrating stakeholder preferences when deciding on power transmission line corridors

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EURO Journal on Decision Processes

Abstract

Decisions about urban space and especially regarding power transmission lines are of great public interest, because their visibility affects citizens for decades. With citizens’ increasing awareness, they expect to be transparently informed, their concerns to be taken seriously and that decision-makers base their decisions rationally on facts and laws. In this paper, we present a 3D Decision Support System (3D DSS) that tackles this issue and allows decision-makers to find an optimal transmission line corridor on such rational basis and by considering stakeholder’s preferences regarding multiple criteria. We examined its reliability regarding the ability of predicting transmission line corridors realistically—as stakeholders would expect them—by carrying out a study in central Switzerland with 10 grid planning experts and government representatives. Moreover, we investigated the extent to which graphic representations may support decision-makers firstly in evaluating a transmission line corridor modeled by the 3D DSS, secondly in considering and improving a human-defined scenario for transmission line planning, and thirdly in changing their opinion about a human-defined path. For this, a questionnaire was statistically evaluated by means of exploratory analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis. The results on the investigated visual analytics approach showed that it supports the evaluation of the corridor modeled by the 3D DSS as well as of the scenario defined by the stakeholders. As our new approach allows stakeholders to evaluate a transmission line path they consider to be optimal for land and population, it has a high potential for supporting rational group decision-making when considering different opinions.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participants for their efforts and the time spent on the study, and for supporting our work in this way and helping us obtain results to further improve the investigated approaches.

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  1. ETH Zurich, Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Joram Schito & Martin Raubal

  2. Swissgrid, Bleichemattstrasse 31, P.O. Box 5001, Aarau, Switzerland

    Joshu Jullier

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  1. Joram Schito
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This research is financially supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE and by the grid operators Swissgrid, ewz, and Elia. Furthermore, it is part of the activities of the Swiss Competence Center for Energy Research on the Future Swiss Electrical Infrastructure (SCCER-FURIES), which is financially supported by the Swiss Innovation Agency (Innosuisse-SCCER program).

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Schito, J., Jullier, J. & Raubal, M. A framework for integrating stakeholder preferences when deciding on power transmission line corridors. EURO J Decis Process 7, 159–195 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40070-019-00100-w

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