Criterion Planners is pleased to announce the selection of its INDEX planning support software by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) and the New Orleans Regional Planning Commission (NORPC). Both MPOs are embarking on comprehensive visoning projects to support their long-range transportation plans, and INDEX will be used for sketching and evaluating alternative land-use/transportation scenarios.

As part of its public involvement process, BMC will conduct INDEX digital charrettes in six counties. Local stakeholders will have the opportunity to sketch scenarios and evaluate them in real-time with sustainability indicators, such as energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. This immediate feedback allows participants to quickly test ideas and concepts, and iterate to the most sustainable outcome. More information about BMC's visioning is at http://www.baltometro.org/transportation-planning/vision-looking-50-yea….

In the New Orleans region, NORPC planners will use INDEX to refine concepts from the post-Katrina Louisana Speaks vision, and characterize alternative local land-use scenarios for the MPO's regional transportation plan. According to Wendel Dufour, a University of New Orleans urban studies professor who assisted the MPO in evaluating sketch tools, "INDEX offered the strongest platform for developing a vision and supporting future planning activities...along with relatively low cost and availability of on-site training." More information about NORPC's initiatives is available at http://www.norpc.org.

INDEX is a suite of interactive GIS tools for assessing community conditions, designing and evaluating scenarios in real-time, and ranking alternatives according to goal achievement. Introduced in 1994, it is now the most-widely used planning support tool in the U.S., with local and regional users in 38 states. Baltimore and New Orleans join other MPO users in Seattle, Portland, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Birmingham, and Atlanta.