Participatory Scenario Development for Sustainable Cities: Literature Review and Case Study of Madrid, Spain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I don't think this is an academic paper, it's more like a research report or technical report. Therefore, I do not recommend accepting this paper in this journal.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 1

We thank the reviewer for their time and for their concise evaluation.

While some aspects of the paper may appear report-like, we have made considerable effort to situate the work in its academic and policy context. To address this comment we have added some further academic background in the relevant places. For example, we now add a detailed literature review of participatory scenario development (see new Section 1.4).

We would also like to point out that the results of deliberative processes like interviews, focus groups and workshops are frequently published in social science journals, many such publications in this journal follow a similar format and use similar techniques, for example:

Uwasu, M., Kishita, Y., Hara, K., & Nomaguchi, Y. (2020). Citizen-participatory scenario design methodology with future design approach: A case study of visioning of a low-carbon society in Suita City, Japan. Sustainability, 12(11), 4746.

Cohen, M., Wiek, A., Kay, B., & Harlow, J. (2015). Aligning public participation to stakeholders’ sustainability literacy—A case study on sustainable urban development in Phoenix, Arizona. Sustainability, 7(7), 8709-8728.

Curtis, H. L., Gabriel, L. C., Sahakian, M., & Cattacin, S. (2021). Practice-based program evaluation in higher education for sustainability: A student participatory approach. Sustainability, 13(19), 10816.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, this is a well-written and timely paper that addresses an important topic in the field of sustainable urban mobility. The participatory approach, stakeholder engagement, and scenario-based analysis provide valuable insights into the case of Madrid and have the potential to inform mobility policy more broadly. The manuscript is generally clear and logically structured, and the scenarios are presented in an accessible way. Some revisions are necessary to strengthen the overall contribution. Addressing these points will improve the robustness and policy relevance of the study and make it suitable for publication.

1. While the manuscript claims originality in applying the Natural Step (NS) approach and participatory scenario development, both are well-established methods. The paper needs to better articulate what is truly new compared to prior participatory scenario studies in transport and sustainability domain.
2. The analysis is narrowly focused on Madrid, but the claims in the abstract and conclusion imply broader applicability to “other large cities.” The authors should either (a) provide comparative insights that clearly demonstrate transferability, or (b) restrict the claims to the specific context of Madrid.
3. The literature review is descriptive and heavily cites European policy documents and generic scenario-planning references. It lacks integration of more recent studies on urban mobility transitions, governance of low-emission zones, and socio-technical transitions (e.g., multi-level perspective frameworks). Such as, Mobility constraints of residents in marginal rural areas of megacities: Evidence from Beijing, China, Improved social force model based on pedestrian collision avoidance behavior in counterflow. A study on the strategic behavior of players participating in air-rail intermodal transportation based on evolutionary games
4. The study only engages 18 expert stakeholders, with some treated as aggregated groups (e.g., 7 researchers coded as a single participant). This raises concerns about representativeness, bias, and over-weighting of certain viewpoints. The authors should clarify why lay citizens or marginalized groups were excluded and justify how the current sample captures diverse mobility perspectives.
   5. The four scenarios (Remote Working, 15-Minute City, Electric City, Public City) are mostly descriptive summaries of stakeholder discourse. They are not systematically evaluated against sustainability metrics (e.g., emissions reduction potential, social equity indices). This weakens the rigor and makes the scenarios appear as opinion catalogues rather than structured analytical outputs.
   6. The SWOT framework applied in the workshop is presented without sufficient methodological rigor. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are listed but not weighted, prioritized, or compared systematically. This limits the utility of the findings for policymakers.
   7. While political polarization is briefly mentioned, the analysis does not adequately address the institutional barriers, governance structures, or power asymmetries that would strongly affect the feasibility of implementing the proposed scenarios. A deeper political economy perspective would strengthen the study.
   8. The recommendations are limited to calls for consensus-building and stakeholder engagement. They lack specificity and actionable guidance for policymakers in Madrid or elsewhere. For instance, what concrete policy tools, funding mechanisms, or governance reforms could realistically operationalize the “Public City” or “15-Minute City” scenarios?

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your detailed comments. We now respond in detail, including line numbers as well as section numbers and new tables. We have made very extensive changes to the manuscript to address your comments, as follows:

• We have added a new paragraph (line 174, 1.5 Participatory scenario development approaches for urban sustainability)
• We have added a new Section 4.2 “Applicability and international transferability of results.” (line 888)
• We have greatly extended the literature review:  New Section 1.2  Research background: urban mobility transformations in Europe and beyond, line 98. 
• We include more detail on the stakeholder group in Table 1. (line 310)
• We improve the presentation and clarity of the SWOT analysis, SWOT analysis by including the four-panel diagrams showing the evaluation of each scenario (lines 719, 739, 792, 861).
• We include new Policy Recommendations section (line 953), and a new Table 3 (line 1001). 

 Full details of all of our changes can be found in the uploaded manuscript with tracked changes. We provide a point-by-point response to all of your comments as follows:

Overall, this is a well-written and timely paper that addresses an important topic in the field of sustainable urban mobility. The participatory approach, stakeholder engagement, and scenario-based analysis provide valuable insights into the case of Madrid and have the potential to inform mobility policy more broadly. The manuscript is generally clear and logically structured, and the scenarios are presented in an accessible way. Some revisions are necessary to strengthen the overall contribution. Addressing these points will improve the robustness and policy relevance of the study and make it suitable for publication.

Thank you for your generous comments and recommendations

While the manuscript claims originality in applying the Natural Step (NS) approach and participatory scenario development, both are well-established methods. The paper needs to better articulate what is truly new compared to prior participatory scenario studies in transport and sustainability domain.

Thank you for this helpful recommendation. We now include a new paragraph (line 174, 1.5 Participatory scenario development approaches for urban sustainability) in which we situate out study in the context of previous literature on the topic, and draw out better what we believe to be our key contribution – the development of scenarios that address the key problem of feasibility in a contested policy context. We have modified the title to reflect this key contribution better, and we have drawn together the result of the SWOT analysis more thoughtfully into a final conclusions section that also address your point #8.     

The analysis is narrowly focused on Madrid, but the claims in the abstract and conclusion imply broader applicability to “other large cities.” The authors should either (a) provide comparative insights that clearly demonstrate transferability, or (b) restrict the claims to the specific context of Madrid.

Thank you, we now include a section which discusses in detail the points of comparison and transferability of the insights in our study for a variety of other cities in Europe and beyond. See the new Section 4.2 “Applicability and international transferability of results.” (line 888)

The literature review is descriptive and heavily cites European policy documents and generic scenario-planning references. It lacks integration of more recent studies on urban mobility transitions, governance of low-emission zones, and socio-technical transitions (e.g., multi-level perspective frameworks). Such as, Mobility constraints of residents in marginal rural areas of megacities: Evidence from Beijing, China, Improved social force model based on pedestrian collision avoidance behavior in counterflow. A study on the strategic behavior of players participating in air-rail intermodal transportation based on evolutionary games

Thanks for this recommendation. We have extended the literature review  so as to specifically include recent references on urban mobility transitions. Please see the new Section 1.2  Research background: urban mobility transformations in Europe and beyond, line 98. 

The study only engages 18 expert stakeholders, with some treated as aggregated groups (e.g., 7 researchers coded as a single participant). This raises concerns about representativeness, bias, and over-weighting of certain viewpoints. The authors should clarify why lay citizens or marginalized groups were excluded and justify how the current sample captures diverse mobility perspectives.

Thank you, while we agree that this is a potential concern, our stakeholders were selected with exceptional care to ensure representativeness. We included lobby groups (both pro and anti-car), public officials from both the city hall and the regional assembly, transport managers from both the city and region, local neighbourhood groups, academics specializing in urban transport and air pollution and an expert in social justice. Marginalized groups were represented by the social justice experts, the neighbourhood associations and the bicycle and pedestrian advocates. Private citizens were not included in the study since we did not at this stage seek consultation with transport users but with transport and mobility specialists. We clarify these points by including additional detail on the stakeholder group in Table 1. (line 310)

1. The four scenarios (Remote Working, 15-Minute City, Electric City, Public City) are mostly descriptive summaries of stakeholder discourse. They are not systematically evaluated against sustainability metrics (e.g., emissions reduction potential, social equity indices). This weakens the rigor and makes the scenarios appear as opinion catalogues rather than structured analytical outputs.

Thank you for this observation. While we do agree that the scenarios are descriptive, they were subject to critical evaluation through the SWOT analysis. In the new version of the manuscript, we have made this process much clearer by including the four-panel diagrams showing the evaluation of each scenario (lines 719, 739, 792, 861). However, we do agree that the scenarios are, in effect, opinion catalogues. But this was our stated intention: “to uncover and analyze these diverse visions emergent from existing stakeholder discourse around sustainable mobility.” (line 146-8) While we agree that systematic evaluation of the scenarios against metrics would be a valuable contribution to the future application of these scenarios to a specific policy programme, we feel that this a step too far for an already long and very detailed research exercise, and prefer to leave this challenge for future work.     

6. The SWOT framework applied in the workshop is presented without sufficient methodological rigor. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are listed but not weighted, prioritized, or compared systematically. This limits the utility of the findings for policymakers.

The SWOT framework was used as a discursive technique to provide critical analysis of the scenarios that emerged from stakeholder discourse.  While we absolutely agree that the SWOT framework could have been applied in a wide variety of ways, we believe that the approach we used is satisfactory in light of our aim, and that the conclusions are interesting and valid. However, in line with this and your following comment, we do agree that more use could be made of the results of the SWOT analysis, which we have now done (see the response to your point #7, below).

1. While political polarization is briefly mentioned, the analysis does not adequately address the institutional barriers, governance structures, or power asymmetries that would strongly affect the feasibility of implementing the proposed scenarios. A deeper political economy perspective would strengthen the study.

We develop these aspects in more detail in the new Policy Recommendations section (line 953), and especially in the new Table 3 (line 1001). By identifying key barriers emergent from the SWOT analysis, and offering some potential policy pathways, we address the question of feasibility and enhance the utility of our findings for policymakers, see new Table 3 (line 1001).

1. The recommendations are limited to calls for consensus-building and stakeholder engagement. They lack specificity and actionable guidance for policymakers in Madrid or elsewhere. For instance, what concrete policy tools, funding mechanisms, or governance reforms could realistically operationalize the “Public City” or “15-Minute City” scenarios?

Specificity and actionable guidance is now provided in the new Policy Recommendations section (line 953), and especially in the new Table 3 (line 1001), where these aspects are specifically addressed.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Through participatory research in sustainable transportation within Madrid, this study explores feasible pathways to achieve urban sustainable transportation. By conducting semi-structured interviews, four future transportation scenarios were constructed and SWOT analyses were performed to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.It provides a valuable practical case for sustainable transport research.However, some problems need to be addressed in the following:

1. The sample selection and social graph analysis require stricter rigor. The current study suffers from a small sample size and only two representatives from the business sector, potentially overlooking key stakeholders. Moreover, the "influence" and "affinity" dimensions of social graphs rely on subjective judgments rather than objective metrics. It is recommended to supplement analyses for non-participating groups or employ network analysis methods to quantify stakeholder relationships.
2. A limitation of the study is that the SWOT analysis remains predominantly qualitative, relying on workshop discussions without the support of quantitative methods to assess the relative priority or feasibility of the proposed scenarios. To strengthen the robustness of the findings, it is recommended that future work incorporates a structured multi-criteria decision-making approach, such as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), to weight and rank the scenarios, thereby providing a more evidence-based foundation for policy recommendations.
3. On Writing and Structure, while the manuscript is generally fluent, its impact is diluted by structural redundancies, particularly in the extensive appendices which divert focus from the core narrative, and repetitive discussions of certain scenarios. To enhance clarity and conciseness, it is advised to condense the appendices by integrating pivotal qualitative excerpts into the main analysis and to consolidate redundant critiques to strengthen the conclusion.

Author Response

[Through participatory research in sustainable transportation within Madrid, this study explores feasible pathways to achieve urban sustainable transportation. By conducting semi-structured interviews, four future transportation scenarios were constructed and SWOT analyses were performed to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.It provides a valuable practical case for sustainable transport research.However, some problems need to be addressed in the following:

The sample selection and social graph analysis require stricter rigor. The current study suffers from a small sample size and only two representatives from the business sector, potentially overlooking key stakeholders.]

We agree that the total number of interviewees was small. However, we note that both semi-structured interviews and workshops were carried out, and that participant balance was sought, e.g. including, among others, academics expert in transport planning, academic experts in air pollution, a not for profit association for bicycle mobility, a not for profit association for pedestrian mobility, a local neighbourhood activists’ association, an association of motor vehicle users, a regional transport consortium employee, the managing director of the municipal transport company (8540 employees), and a city council specialist in sustainable development.  We now include this detail in Table 1 to highlight the careful balance and diversity of the participant selection.

[Moreover, the "influence" and "affinity" dimensions of social graphs rely on subjective judgments rather than objective metrics. It is recommended to supplement analyses for non-participating groups or employ network analysis methods to quantify stakeholder relationships.]

We agree that the stakeholder assessment of influence and affinity are somewhat subjective. However, these aspects are difficult to precisely measure, and the role of the sociogram is to help in understand the positioning of the stakeholder community relative to the phenomenon investigated. It offers a structured way to visualize relations of power and interest (and hence bias) in the participant group, and we argue that despite its subjective nature it does allow worthwhile observations to be made.

[A limitation of the study is that the SWOT analysis remains predominantly qualitative, relying on workshop discussions without the support of quantitative methods to assess the relative priority or feasibility of the proposed scenarios. To strengthen the robustness of the findings, it is recommended that future work incorporates a structured multi-criteria decision-making approach, such as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), to weight and rank the scenarios, thereby providing a more evidence-based foundation for policy recommendations.]

Thank you for this helpful suggestion, we agree that future work could address SWOT analysis in a more systematic way. To improve this aspect in the current paper, we have used the SWOT analysis to identify key barriers to sustainable mobility,  which we now include in a new Table 3, together with some suggestions for potential policy pathways.

[On Writing and Structure, while the manuscript is generally fluent, its impact is diluted by structural redundancies, particularly in the extensive appendices which divert focus from the core narrative, and repetitive discussions of certain scenarios. To enhance clarity and conciseness, it is advised to condense the appendices by integrating pivotal qualitative excerpts into the main analysis and to consolidate redundant critiques to strengthen the conclusion.]

Thank you for this helpful recommendation. We have now integrated the appendices into the results section of the main text, which improves the flow of the manuscript. To make space for this, and to eliminate the repetition, we have replaced the detailed discussion of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats with new 4-panel figures which summarize these aspects better, and free up space in the discussion for the Applicability and international transferability of results and extended policy recommendations section, as requested by the editor and other reviewers.     

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have not addressed all the reviewer comments and did not specify the revisions made in the manuscript, including the corresponding line and page numbers for easier verification. It is recommended to provide the authors with one more opportunity to revise and resubmit the paper accordingly.

Author Response

 

The authors have not addressed all the reviewer comments and did not specify the revisions made in the manuscript, including the corresponding line and page numbers for easier verification. It is recommended to provide the authors with one more opportunity to revise and resubmit the paper accordingly.

Dear reviewer, thank you for your detailed comments. We now respond in detail, including line numbers as well as section numbers and new tables. We have made very extensive changes to the manuscript to address your comments, as follows:

• We have added a new paragraph (line 174, 1.5 Participatory scenario development approaches for urban sustainability)
• We have added a new Section 4.2 “Applicability and international transferability of results.” (line 888)
• We have greatly extended the literature review:  New Section 1.2  Research background: urban mobility transformations in Europe and beyond, line 98. 
• We include more detail on the stakeholder group in Table 1. (line 310)
• We improve the presentation and clarity of the SWOT analysis, SWOT analysis by including the four-panel diagrams showing the evaluation of each scenario (lines 719, 739, 792, 861).
• We include new Policy Recommendations section (line 953), and a new Table 3 (line 1001). 

 Full details of all of our changes can be found in the uploaded manuscript with tracked changes. We provide a point-by-point response to all of your comments as follows:

 

 

 

Overall, this is a well-written and timely paper that addresses an important topic in the field of sustainable urban mobility. The participatory approach, stakeholder engagement, and scenario-based analysis provide valuable insights into the case of Madrid and have the potential to inform mobility policy more broadly. The manuscript is generally clear and logically structured, and the scenarios are presented in an accessible way. Some revisions are necessary to strengthen the overall contribution. Addressing these points will improve the robustness and policy relevance of the study and make it suitable for publication.

Thank you for your generous comments and recommendations

While the manuscript claims originality in applying the Natural Step (NS) approach and participatory scenario development, both are well-established methods. The paper needs to better articulate what is truly new compared to prior participatory scenario studies in transport and sustainability domain.

Thank you for this helpful recommendation. We now include a new paragraph (line 174, 1.5 Participatory scenario development approaches for urban sustainability) in which we situate out study in the context of previous literature on the topic, and draw out better what we believe to be our key contribution – the development of scenarios that address the key problem of feasibility in a contested policy context. We have modified the title to reflect this key contribution better, and we have drawn together the result of the SWOT analysis more thoughtfully into a final conclusions section that also address your point #8.     

The analysis is narrowly focused on Madrid, but the claims in the abstract and conclusion imply broader applicability to “other large cities.” The authors should either (a) provide comparative insights that clearly demonstrate transferability, or (b) restrict the claims to the specific context of Madrid.

Thank you, we now include a section which discusses in detail the points of comparison and transferability of the insights in our study for a variety of other cities in Europe and beyond. See the new Section 4.2 “Applicability and international transferability of results.” (line 888)

The literature review is descriptive and heavily cites European policy documents and generic scenario-planning references. It lacks integration of more recent studies on urban mobility transitions, governance of low-emission zones, and socio-technical transitions (e.g., multi-level perspective frameworks). Such as, Mobility constraints of residents in marginal rural areas of megacities: Evidence from Beijing, China, Improved social force model based on pedestrian collision avoidance behavior in counterflow. A study on the strategic behavior of players participating in air-rail intermodal transportation based on evolutionary games

Thanks for this recommendation. We have extended the literature review  so as to specifically include recent references on urban mobility transitions. Please see the new Section 1.2  Research background: urban mobility transformations in Europe and beyond, line 98. 

The study only engages 18 expert stakeholders, with some treated as aggregated groups (e.g., 7 researchers coded as a single participant). This raises concerns about representativeness, bias, and over-weighting of certain viewpoints. The authors should clarify why lay citizens or marginalized groups were excluded and justify how the current sample captures diverse mobility perspectives.

Thank you, while we agree that this is a potential concern, our stakeholders were selected with exceptional care to ensure representativeness. We included lobby groups (both pro and anti-car), public officials from both the city hall and the regional assembly, transport managers from both the city and region, local neighbourhood groups, academics specializing in urban transport and air pollution and an expert in social justice. Marginalized groups were represented by the social justice experts, the neighbourhood associations and the bicycle and pedestrian advocates. Private citizens were not included in the study since we did not at this stage seek consultation with transport users but with transport and mobility specialists. We clarify these points by including additional detail on the stakeholder group in Table 1. (line 310)

5. The four scenarios (Remote Working, 15-Minute City, Electric City, Public City) are mostly descriptive summaries of stakeholder discourse. They are not systematically evaluated against sustainability metrics (e.g., emissions reduction potential, social equity indices). This weakens the rigor and makes the scenarios appear as opinion catalogues rather than structured analytical outputs.

   Thank you for this observation. While we do agree that the scenarios are descriptive, they were subject to critical evaluation through the SWOT analysis. In the new version of the manuscript, we have made this process much clearer by including the four-panel diagrams showing the evaluation of each scenario (lines 719, 739, 792, 861). However, we do agree that the scenarios are, in effect, opinion catalogues. But this was our stated intention: “to uncover and analyze these diverse visions emergent from existing stakeholder discourse around sustainable mobility.” (line 146-8) While we agree that systematic evaluation of the scenarios against metrics would be a valuable contribution to the future application of these scenarios to a specific policy programme, we feel that this a step too far for an already long and very detailed research exercise, and prefer to leave this challenge for future work.     

   6. The SWOT framework applied in the workshop is presented without sufficient methodological rigor. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are listed but not weighted, prioritized, or compared systematically. This limits the utility of the findings for policymakers.

The SWOT framework was used as a discursive technique to provide critical analysis of the scenarios that emerged from stakeholder discourse.  While we absolutely agree that the SWOT framework could have been applied in a wide variety of ways, we believe that the approach we used is satisfactory in light of our aim, and that the conclusions are interesting and valid. However, in line with this and your following comment, we do agree that more use could be made of the results of the SWOT analysis, which we have now done (see the response to your point #7, below).

7. While political polarization is briefly mentioned, the analysis does not adequately address the institutional barriers, governance structures, or power asymmetries that would strongly affect the feasibility of implementing the proposed scenarios. A deeper political economy perspective would strengthen the study.

We develop these aspects in more detail in the new Policy Recommendations section (line 953), and especially in the new Table 3 (line 1001). By identifying key barriers emergent from the SWOT analysis, and offering some potential policy pathways, we address the question of feasibility and enhance the utility of our findings for policymakers, see new Table 3 (line 1001).

8. The recommendations are limited to calls for consensus-building and stakeholder engagement. They lack specificity and actionable guidance for policymakers in Madrid or elsewhere. For instance, what concrete policy tools, funding mechanisms, or governance reforms could realistically operationalize the “Public City” or “15-Minute City” scenarios?

Specificity and actionable guidance is now provided in the new Policy Recommendations section (line 953), and especially in the new Table 3 (line 1001), where these aspects are specifically addressed.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have already answered the inquiries and carefully revised themanuscript based on the reviewers' comments. In my opinion, the revised manuscript should bepublished after checking the template.

Author Response

The authors have already answered the inquiries and carefully revised themanuscript based on the reviewers' comments. In my opinion, the revised manuscript should bepublished after checking the template.

Thank you for you generous appreciation of our work and for taking the time to review our manuscript

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Accepted 

Author Response

Thank you