TechTO: Toronto planning decision support

TechTO is a Next.js and MapLibre decision-support application for City of Toronto planning. The map and chat let a planner ask free-form questions, inspect an area, compare options, request map changes, and examine a simulated distribution of day-one acceptance.

The product front door is /: the open-city TechTO dashboard. Chat runs the live Backboard Planning Orchestrator with optional twin tools and specialist calls.

The system predicts acceptance, not physical or economic consequences. It does not treat simulated reactions as consultation, and it does not claim ridership, emissions, congestion, or financial returns without separate validated models and evidence.

Chat answers and reports

Planning recommendations use concise Markdown sections when relevant:

1. Recommendation
2. Why this area
3. Sustainability potential
4. Screening metrics
5. ROI and value case
6. Success KPIs to validate
7. What to validate next

ROI is an evidence contract, not a required headline number. The feasibility specialist separates measured inputs, modeled monetized benefits, unvalidated assumptions, and scenario ranges. It calculates (validated monetized benefits - lifecycle costs) / lifecycle costs only when both sides are supported. Otherwise the answer says which demand, cost, and benefit assumptions must be validated. NPV, benefit-cost ratio, payback period, discount rate, analysis horizon, and sensitivity are included when available.

Every assistant answer has an Export PDF control. The main transcript and selected-place chat also export complete conversations. Export opens a clean, print-ready report containing the question, response, citations, Toronto context, timestamp, and decision-support disclaimer. Choose Save as PDF in the browser print dialog.

Local setup

npm install
npm run dev

Copy .env.example to .env.local and configure the server-only services used by the surface you are running:

• BACKBOARD_API_KEY is required for live Backboard chat. There is no mock Backboard adapter.
• TECHTO_CITIZEN_REACTION_PROVIDER=real-opinion (default) and the FreeSolo variables drive both TechTO citizen reactions and the open-city score_population/run_twin_analysis tools -- there is one real opinion-model pipeline, no synthetic/mock fallback.
• TECHTO_REPOSITORY_PROVIDER=fixture|mongo selects local transit fixtures or MongoDB Atlas for TechTO repository reads.
• NEXT_PUBLIC_MAP_STYLE_URL optionally overrides the MapLibre base style.

Never expose Backboard, FreeSolo, or MongoDB credentials through a NEXT_PUBLIC_ variable.

Map data

• Basemap: OpenFreeMap by default, with a configurable MapLibre style.
• Neighbourhoods: City of Toronto 158-neighbourhood boundaries joined with 2021 Census profile indicators.
• Transit: TTC subway, LRT, and streetcar geometry derived from official GTFS.
• Residents: a synthetic visualization weighted to neighbourhood population.

Generated web map inputs live under public/data/. Data preparation and the research population pipeline live under scripts/data/, data/, and population/. See AGENTS.md for provenance, calibration requirements, and the distinction between the research population files and TechTO fixtures.

Commands

npm run lint
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run build
npm run test:e2e
npm run backboard:bootstrap
npm run backboard:status
npm run backboard:smoke

Backboard commands require live credentials. Playwright smoke tests stub costly live planning turns where appropriate.

Stack

Next.js App Router, React, TypeScript strict mode, Tailwind CSS, MapLibre GL JS, Zustand, Backboard, FreeSolo, optional MongoDB Atlas, Vitest, and Playwright.