Cerema, partner of the H2020 SUMPs-Up project to plan sustainable urban mobility in Europe

Inequalities in Europe in terms of sustainable urban mobility

SUMP stands for «Sustainable urban mobility plan». It is a strategic planning instrument for local authorities, allowing balanced development and integration of all modes of transport, by promoting the modal shift towards the most sustainable modes. The plan de déplacements urbains (PDU - urban mobility plan) is the French version.

In Europe however, not all cities are so advanced in the development and implementation of sustainable urban mobility plans. The SUMPs-Up project, which started in September 2016 for a period of three and a half years, aims to provide local authorities with tools to encourage and help them plan sustainable urban mobility.

The project brings together 15 partners from 11 countries, including 7 European cities.

The project partners are the cities of Birmingham, Budapest, Malmö, San Sebastian, Sofia, Thessaloniki, and Turin. These cities, which are advanced in the development of sustainable urban mobility, will share lessons and experience feedback with other cities for which they will serve as models.

Approximately one hundred cities are members of the pilot group on innovation, to test the tools between partners. In all, the project aims to impact six hundred cities in developing their transport capacity, thanks to the tools provided by the project.

SUMPs-Up is one of three projects linked to the 2020 European initiative CIVITAS, to improve transport, via 80 living labs across Europe.

Involving national authorities

Cerema works more specifically on the contribution of national authorities to the development of SUMPs, and how they can help local authorities in the development and implementation of their sustainable urban mobility plans.

Indeed, coordination between national and local authorities is essential to have a regulatory and financial framework favourable to the planning of sustainable urban mobility, and this is a strong demand from cities.

Working groups are organized in three countries where the need for support from local authorities has been identified. The aim is:

• To underline the importance of a national framework to improve the implementation of sustainable urban mobility plans in cities.

• To identify the organisations that can promote the establishment of this framework for SUMPs,

• To disseminate guides and tools for the development of these national frameworks.

• To issue specific guidelines based on country contexts and profiles.

Moreover, work was carried out at the level of all European Member States in order to draw up the inventory, list the needs, obstacles and to identify best practices related to the planning of sustainable urban mobility [1].

Supporting local authorities

To promote the development of SUMPs in Europe, SUMPs-Up has adopted several levers for local authorities in charge of travel planning: creation of exchange groups, training, platform for providing tools, etc.
Several calls are thus organised to fund the participation of experts from AOMs in training programs (SUMP Learning Program, or SLP). Lasting 6 months, they combine the transfer of knowledge, test and evaluation results with the learning of concepts, approaches, tools and methodologies for the development of sustainable urban mobility plans. After the first call, launched in spring 2017, the second was launched in March 2018. In total, approximately 100 AOMs will be associated with the project.

[1] The «SUMPs in Member States» report is available from the project website.