MetroQuest began in 1987 at the University of Waterloo as a research project to model sustainability. By 1992, the MetroQuest project had moved to the Sustainable Development Research Institute at the University of British Columbia.

At UBC, MetroQuest changed from modeling sustainability at a national level to a more regional and municipal focus. It also migrated from the mainframe to PC-based technology. In total, MetroQuest was developed over a period of 10 years by 70+ contributing professors and researchers.

In addition to developing integrated computer models, the team also learned how to bridge the gap between the general public and decision-makers by pioneering methods for representing complex information and counter-intuitive issues in easy-to-understand ways. These innovations included the ability to compare scenarios side-by-side, real time capability, and ways to display multi-bottom-line summaries across multiple key-indicators.

As a private company for the past 11 years, MetroQuest continues to improve its technologies and professional services for the purpose of helping clients create broad-based support for their planning initiatives. MetroQuest clients include innovative planning agencies, cities and regional governments around the world.