The role of institutional innovation and learning when pursuing transit-oriented development strategies: EURA 2013

Transit-oriented development strategies (TODS) are widely pursued by planners and policy makers. However, there is a lack of0clarity on how institutional innovation and learning accompanying0institutional change0facilitates an explicit shift towards a conducive context for TODS. This is evident in planning literature, where explicit definitions of the concepts of institutional innovation and learning with respect to institutional change are lacking. These concepts are used in a cursory manner and usually not grounded in planning practice. Therefore, by s0ynthesising planning, economic and management and organisational science literature;0a theoretical and a methodological framework to identify and analyse these markers of institutional innovation and patterns of learnings are proposed and tested.0Testing these frameworks on the four0metropolitan regions of Perth, Portland, Vancouver and Copenhagen that have made0the shift towards TODS implementation, the markers and patterns are identified and analysed. These cases are further evaluated for their absorptive capacity based on those findings. T0he paper reflects on the theoretical and methodological framework and concludes with recommendations for planners and policy makers and further research steps.