Test Planning Process

December 2014- September 2015 | Patras, Greece

Considering the socio-economic crisis in Greece, the fragmented decision-making currently taking place among the different planning levels and actors is already having a dramatic effect on the implementation of infrastructure networks. This means that new planning methods are urgently required in order to ensure the spatial and infrastructure development of Greece. Firstly, railway networks not only contribute to serving transportation needs, they also promote development and generate new forms of urbanism that provide social cohesion in fragmented areas. During the preparatory steps for the CODEPATRAS project, it was mutually agreed to conduct a Test Planning Process for the City of Patras, the western gateway to Greece. A Test Planning Process is an informal, ad hoc and collaborative process conducted by numerous stakeholders to solve complex spatial problems of strategic importance.

The idea to use such a procedure in Patras emerged from the different interests expressed by various actors concerning spatial planning development and railway integration in the urban fabric, which has been a problem for the last two decades. The introduction of the Test Planning Process started with an initiative from ETH Zurich in close cooperation with the University of Patras and the NTUA (National Technical University of Athens). Using the Test Planning Process in a situation of crisis would bring more clarity to this complex problem and open the possibilities of a new approach. It was initiated in 2014 and involved the important actors of the city, regional development agencies and independent experts of various disciplines. In addition, the process invited four planning teams to explore solutions for the complex tasks simultaneously. Although it is a well-known process in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, it is a pioneering method in a Greek institutional and planning context, combining top-down policies with bottom-up initiatives.