Modelling was one of the main concerns of planning-related computing in the 1960s and 1970s, but declined in the 1980s when it was overshadowed by GIS applications. However, modelling is back, ‘leaner’ and more user-friendly, offering the vision (or rather, partial reality) of a complete desktop planning-support system (PSS). Service facility location and other spatial planning decisions represent multiobjective and multicriteria processes where microcomputer-based models would provide cost-effective planning-support functions. Three new noncommercial packages—LADSS, FlowMap, and LocNet—for such specific spatial analysis and planning work are introduced and discussed by using a comparative framework. The packages are relatively powerful and ready for practical use. In some respects they are similar (for example, their orientation towards users' specific needs and user-friendly interface) but they differ in terms of objectives (optimisation versus solution space) and applicability in practice. In this paper it is shown how such packages could become part of an incremental PSS, in conjunction with other software, for guiding the planning process.
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