A Composite Index Framework for Quantifying External Influences on Built Environment Planning and Decision Making

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Interactive research explainer

Infrastructure does not change in isolation.

Population, employment, economic cycles, extreme weather, technology, and policy all reshape what infrastructure must deliver. Our framework turns those scattered external signals into an updateable, traceable planning index—without hiding where the signal came from.

98candidate external factors

6transportation modes

4latent dimensions per mode

2005–21Florida study period

Traditional plans often monitor indicators one at a time or depend on static forecasts. That makes it difficult to see a slow shift forming across many datasets—or to explain why a statewide signal changed. The problem is not simply “too much data.” It is that the data arrive at different frequencies, operate with delays, interact across domains, and matter at different levels of the infrastructure hierarchy.

Causal Inference on Mohammad Movahedi

A Composite Index Framework for Quantifying External Influences on Built Environment Planning and Decision Making

Infrastructure does not change in isolation.