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Planning approaches that integrate road infrastructure and other land uses are being increasingly applied. Dealing with functional interrelatedness and stakeholder fragmentation are the main reasons for this. This article conceptualizes and analyses why and how such integrated approaches can be applied effectively throughout consecutive stages of infrastructure planning. The two case studies illustrate that the concept of integration is applied for strategic as well as operational reasons, and they reveal that these reasons may alternate throughout the planning process. Effective integration is therefore dynamic: it appropriately focuses on strengthening the socio-economic perspectives of a region for the longer term, as well as on the relations between different land uses that are physically adjacent and competing for space within a smaller area. Due to fragmented institutional contexts, successfully dealing with interrelatedness requires an intense level of interaction amongst involved actors. Such "coproduction" of visions and plans has two important characteristics: negotiation, and learning about each other's goals. Ultimately the case studies also show that planning at the infrastructure-land use interface needs institutional mechanisms to guide the alterations between strategically and operationally inspired integration. Contracts with private parties, public participation, and positive conditions for learning about each other's referential frames are examples of the institutional mechanisms encountered in this study.

Road infrastructure projects are increasingly placed in their wider land-use context because of the functional relationships they have with surrounding areas. These more inclusive area-oriented planning processes typically involve a complex of interdependent but institutionally fragmented actors. Effective operationalization of collaborative strategies therefore remains difficult. Various policies introduce spatial design efforts to the infrastructure planning processes as a strategy to deal with these issues. This paper explores experiences in the Netherlands that have placed spatial design in vital positions in the process. An exploration of literature from the fields of spatial design, planning, and geography teaches us that design approaches, in such cases, may be applied to serve as a communicative modus that fosters dialogue, creativity, and eventually an inclusive and shared story about an area's future. We interviewed designers experienced in serving that role and asked them whether and how such objectives are achieved. Consecutively, in order to come to practical lessons for exploitation of the merits indicated by the interviewees, we studied two projects that the interviewees considered best practices. We conclude that a combination of technical and relational design can effectively help a fragmented group of actors to find a shared and meaningful story and make integral choices on infrastructure projects, framed within a wider area's development. Ensuring effective iterations between technical and relational design requires institutionalization of the coordinative capacities of design, as well as the right mindset among participants. This way, the employment of such design approaches facilitates effective operationalization of collaborative governance at the infrastructure/ land-use interface. Coping with interrelatedness and fragmentation at the infrastructure/ land-use interface: The potential merits of a design approach Niels HeeresTerry van Dijk IntroductionTo avoid problems with timely project delivery, social cost effectiveness, stakeholder satisfaction, and support among public and political stakeholders (Flyvbjerg, Bruzelius, and Rothengatter 2003;Busscher, Tillema, and Arts 2015), western countries are increasingly concerned (or experimenting) with integrating regional and local land-use interests in the (re)development of major road infrastructure networks (Bertolini 2009). Examples of such integrated strategies are found worldwide. "Area-oriented" approaches in the Netherlands, "context-sensitive" strategies in the US (Amekudzi and Meyer 2006), the TILLUP-study by the Federation of European Highway Research Laboratories (Fehrl 2013), the "regional packages" in Sweden (Heeres, Tillema, and Arts 2012a), the Madrid Rio-project in Spain (Madrid 2011) and the "Infrastruktur in der Landschaft"experiment in Germany (BBSR 2011) are all initiatives that use major road infrastructure developments to proactively enhance the (urban) landscapes that surround the roads. These inclusive project...

This article draws lessons about recent innovations in decision support for coping with challenges in integrated infrastructure planning strategies. After setting up a conceptual framework for the scope of analysis and the use of information in infrastructure planning, the empirical section explores the introduction of earlystage sustainability assessment tools. Data collection draws on experiences gained in the Netherlands with a new tool: 'Sustainability Check'. We conclude that such instruments have a number of capacities that address the challenges of area-oriented planning: (a) bringing together information about the comprehensive value of alternatives, (b) facilitating the generation of alternatives, (c) addressing institutional fragmentation by learning about referential frames, and (d) adding contextual perspectives to the 'hard' outcomes of conventional tools. We also conclude that tools such as Sustainability Check should not be seen as a replacement for conventional decision support tools, but rather as complementary to them.

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