Data-Driven Mobility Planning as a Mediating Infrastructure

Big Data, AI, and Intergenerational Participation in the Lake Chapala Region, Mexico

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-747-7_9How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Data-driven urbanism; Mobility Planning; Regional urban planning; Participatory planning

Abstract

This Regional mobility planning increasingly faces challenges in territories characterized by environmental sensitivity, fragmented governance, and multi-municipal coordination. In these contexts, mobility systems operate as complex socio-technical arrangements shaped by interdependent travel behaviors, land-use patterns, and institutional dynamics across scales. Although data-driven tools are often presented as objective solutions, limited attention has been given to how different sources of information interact within actual planning processes. This paper asks how data-driven tools can support regional mobility planning when combined with survey-based methods and participatory processes.

The study analyzes the 2025 Lake Chapala Regional Mobility Plan in Mexico, a multi-municipal initiative encompassing several jurisdictions surrounding the country’s largest lake. The methodology integrates Big Data analysis, AI-assisted traffic counts, and geospatial modeling with origin–destination surveys and participatory workshops involving technical teams, municipal authorities, and local communities.

These workshops were structured under a “Seven Generations” framework to incorporate intergenerational perspectives into mobility decision-making. Findings indicate that Big Data revealed regional mobility patterns and temporal dynamics, surveys provided socio-demographic and behavioral insights, and participatory workshops enabled contextual interpretation and validation of technical results. Rather than replacing deliberation, data-driven tools functioned as mediating infrastructures that structure dialogue and facilitate coordination among municipalities.

The Lake Chapala case demonstrates that integrating digital analytics, surveys, and participatory processes can strengthen inter-municipal coordination and enhance the legitimacy of regional mobility planning outcomes.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Juan Pablo Villarreal Hernández
AU  - Marcela Rodríguez Medel
AU  - Britany Martínez Barragán
AU  - Brenda Paola Gonzalez Guerrero
AU  - Priscyla Ayala Alamilla
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/24
TI  - Data-Driven Mobility Planning as a Mediating Infrastructure
BT  - Proceedings of the International Seminar on Designing the Future (ISDF 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 186
EP  - 208
SN  - 3091-4442
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-747-7_9
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-747-7_9
ID  - Hernández2026
ER  -