The call for cities to take part in the next SUMP Learning Programme (SLP) has been launched.
Up to 25 planning authorities have the chance to join SLP5, which will start in May 2019. This group of mobility practitioners will complete the Expert Group of 90 SUMP cities.
The six-month SLP module combines knowledge transfer and testing and assessment with learning on concepts, approaches, tools, and methodologies for Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) development.
The activities blend online and face-to-face learning and exchange. Participants also benefit from one city-to-city review and a one-to-one support session from SUMPs-Up mobility experts.
SLP 5 will focus on SUMP implementation, financing and procurement. Activities will include writing and reviewing a SUMP action plan, monitoring and evaluating the impact of measures, procuring services, and identifying new challenges.
SUMPs-Up is seeking mobility and transport professionals active in local or regional transport planning authorities that have experience in sustainable mobility planning. Cities that are currently elaborating their first SUMP are also encouraged to apply.
Alongside urban or regional authorities, local consortiums containing such an authority can also apply. All applicants must be based in a Member State of the European Union, a country in the European Economic Area, or an associated country of the Horizon 2020 programme (see list).
See the call document below for the full eligibility criteria.
The deadline for applications is 12:00 CET on 11 January 2019. Click here to access the application form.
To read the full call document, click here. Additionally, frequently asked questions and their answers can be viewed here. For further information, visit the call page.
Should you have any enquiries, contact helpdesk@sumps-up.eu.
Are you interested in how to get started with the sustainable urban mobility planning process? Do you want to learn from the experience of European cities?
Then keep an eye out for our upcoming learning activities targeted at mobility practitioners.
The first of these will be launched in December 2018, with the project arranging a total of eight webinars and e-courses over the coming year. All of these will be free of charge and accessible to all.
The webinars will provide a prime opportunity for experts and practitioners to learn about the various phases involved in the SUMP process, whilst hearing practical examples from different cities that give.
The opening webinar is taking place on Wednesday 5 December, 10:00 - 11:30 CET, and looks at the topic of “Starting up the SUMP process - Tools for SUMP”.
Alongside a detailed introduction to the available tools, Kristina Gaučė from the city of Vilnius, Lithuania, will present a case study on their experiences of starting the SUMP process.
To register for the webinar, click here. You can find the agenda here.
The e-courses will provide the chance to dive deeper into the selected topics – comprehensive material, background reading, case study examples and exercises will be offered for self-study until the end of the project.
Find more information on the mobility practitioner learning activities here.
Since their launch in 2013, the EU's SUMP Guidelines have been the main reference document for developing Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). Yet the last five years have seen societal and technological developments and valuable insight gained from implementing SUMPs: it is time to update the Guidelines to reflect these.
As part of the SUMP 2.0 process to revise the Guidelines, an event will be held on 12 December 2018, 09.15 - 13.00 in Brussels (Belgium) at the Basque Delegation to the EU. It forms part of ICLEI's long-running Breakfast at Sustainability's series.
For local, national and European level officials working on SUMPs, it represents a prime opportunity to use their expertise to make a crucial contribution to improving the next generation of SUMP guidance and shaping EU mobility policy.
Following an opening address from DG MOVE on the importance of SUMP 2.0, three cities with different SUMP profiles will discuss their experiences of using the Guidelines and the improvements they believe are needed.
This sets the scene for an interactive stakeholder workshop in which participants will be able to give feedback on specific sections of the Guidelines and put forward the good practice examples and methods they believe should be included in the new document.
A networking breakfast and lunch provide further chances to meet and swap ideas with SUMP peers from across Europe.
Click here to read the draft agenda. Register your place here by 7 December 2018. Please contact Marko Horvat at ICLEI Europe - marko.horvat@iclei.org - with any questions.
The participants for the third SUMP Learning Programme (SLP) have been selected. The group consists 20 small- and medium-sized towns, cities, and municipalities drawn from nine countries across the EU.
The thematic focus for SLP 3 is "Tools and services for SUMP elaboration and measure selection". By taking part in online and face-to-face learning activities and through regular exchange and interaction among themselves and with SUMPs-Up experts, participants will deepen their knowledge of and develop skills related to this crucial topic.
The first SLP 3 workshop will take place in Bucharest, Romania, on Wednesday 17 October. Read more here. To see a full list of the SLP 3 group, click here.
The SLP 3 participants were chosen following an open call launched in spring this year. Their counterparts in the fourth SUMP Learning Programme will be announced soon.
The call for the fifth and final SLP will appear in late 2018. Check out the SUMPs-Up calls and funding page here for all the latest updates.
To find out more about the concept behind and watch previous webinars from the SLPs, click here.
All towns and cities developing a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) deal with difficulties. Yet their nature differs: the challenges faced by small- and medium-sized cities are not the same as their larger counterparts.
A new podcast sheds light on the SUMP situations in a series of such locations from across Europe.
Mobility practitioners from Hengelo (the Netherlands), Sligo County (Republic of Ireland), Ghimbav (Romania), Vercelli (Italy), and Greek islands discuss the realities they encounter and give insight into the unique hurdles that they have to overcome.
Each of the cities examined a specific topic:
All of those involved were participants in the project's second SUMP Learning Programme "Tools and services for initiating a SUMP tailor-made for small and medium-sized cities".
To listen to the podcast, click here. For more details on the SUMP Learning Programmes, visit the learning activities page here.
The existence and degree of technical support and quality control for Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) from the national or regional level varies significantly across Europe.
For example, whilst a few advanced countries have developed SUMP-supporting national frameworks, a second group of countries is only now moving towards this approach, and a third group has yet to even adopt sustainable urban mobility planning as an objective of transport policy.
This, along with a limited understanding of the SUMP concept in certain countries, has affected the development of high-quality SUMPs.
In light of the importance of national and regional level support - particularly with regards to governance, financing, and capacity building - in fostering SUMP take-up at the local level, the CIVITAS SUMPs-Up project joined forces with CIVITAS PROSPERITY to examine SUMP-related national frameworks in the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU).
Originally captured in separate documents from each project, these findings have now been combined and presented in the summary report - “The Status of SUMPs in EU Member States". This concludes with a set of recommendations for countries interested in developing or elaborating their own national SUMP programmes.
By providing information about existing national programmes and barriers to sustainable urban mobility planning, the report supports national authorities with the development and improvement of their own frameworks.
For more information and to download the summary report or the unabridged version, visit the reports page here.
The call for applications for the 7th SUMP Award is now open!
This year's award focuses on multimodality, in line with Commissioner Bulc's declaration that 2018 is the "Year of Multimodality".
Multimodality has been defined as the use of different modes of transport on the same journey or for different trips for both goods and passengers.
Read the call for applications here and the evaluation criteria here. The deadline for applications is 1 October 2018.
An interview with Radu Andronic from Turda, Romania, the winner of last year's award, can be seen here. It was conducted by fellow SUMP project CIVITAS PROSPERITY.
On 13 June, representatives from cities, the European Commission and other thematic organizations convened at the Vienna House in Brussels in an event organized by CIVITAS SUMPs-Up to discuss how to best support and boost SUMP take-up in cities and regions in the EU.
The event opened with an introduction on the status of SUMPs in Europe. The total number of adopted SUMPs has grown significantly since 2013, although the situation varies greatly across countries.
At the national level, an increasing number of countries (compared to 2011) provide a more structured framework for sustainable urban mobility planning that includes legal definition, guidance, assessment scheme, or other types of support. Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement.
Draft recommendations and effective SUMP take-up strategies, resulting from a recent analysis conducted with 300 European city and national government representatives, were later presented.
These included, for example: making use of experienced cities to raise awareness and share best practices; entrusting a single national body with SUMP control and monitoring; and investing in capacity building activities and funding that tackle transport planning evaluation, indicator development and data gathering.
The final version of the recommendations will be made available in Autumn 2018.
Since their launch in 2013, the SUMP Guidelines have been the main reference document for developing Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). Yet with new developments in society and technology, as well as valuable experiences from practical implementation, an update reflecting these is now appropriate.
The process to further develop and improve the SUMP Guidelines was begun at this year's SUMP Conference in Nicosia, Cyprus by Maja Bakran, Deputy Director-General for Mobility and Transport of the European Commission.
An entire conference stream was dedicated to "SUMP 2.0". SUMP experts and practitioners shared ideas and collected a wide range of valuable input for this major update. The conference commenced the stakeholder consultation process; additional feedback will be gathered at several events over the next six months.
Based on a conference survey and focus group discussions in Nicosia, some clear messages have emerged with regards to what can be improved:
The discussions at the SUMP Conference provided an excellent insight into the priorities of the SUMP community in Europe.
This will help the Eltis SUMP Coordinating Group, of which SUMPs-Up is a part, to identify the aspects that should take priority in the next version of the SUMP Guidelines.
The initial draft of the updated Guidelines is scheduled to be published at the 2019 SUMP Conference in Groningen.
To read the current SUMP Guidelines, click here.
From 13-14 May, SUMPs-Up was in the warm climes of Nicosia, Cyprus, to take part in the 5th European Conference on Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning.
SUMPs-Up played an active role from the very get-go. On the opening morning, it was one of 18 projects to introduce itself and its work to the plenary audience as part of the Marketplace Session.
Thereafter, there were numerous activities in which SUMPs-Up was involved. One of these was the "Zooming in on SUMPs – Looking at them through an Eastern European Lens“.
Organised with CIVITAS PROSPERITY and the MobiliseYourCity project, it brought together 10 cities from across the region to find out the very different SUMP realities that citiies their face.
In its presentation, SUMPs-Up partner city Budapest made clear that despite the SUMP success in the city, they cannot take political buy-in for granted. Constant engagement with and convincing of politicians is required.
Another workshop saw the stakeholder process for the upcoming revision of the SUMP Guidelines being kicked off. This was the first of many events to ensure that the new Guidelines reflect the needs of the SUMP community.
The two days were over as soon as they began, and the large piles of publications that had taken over the SUMPs-Up stand on the first morning were nowhere to be seen.
All presentations from the conference can be found here.
SUMPs-Up has launched its new report “Standards for Developing a SUMP Action Plan”.
It provides city planners with guidance on what to include in their Action Plans in terms of responsibilities, resources, stakeholder coordination, time plans, and funding sources.
Alongside this, it contains good examples of action plan documents and templates, alongside a user manual.
In addition, it breaks down the development of a SUMP Action Plan into an easy-to-understand six-step process, with the final stage of this an implementation plan.
The report complements the SUMPs-Up manuals focusing on SUMP measure selection by providing a detailed outline for how city planners may successfully implement measures.
To ensure its relevance to all cities, the report takes into account also different levels of SUMP development experience and degrees of maturity of cities across Europe.
For more information on the report and to download it, click here.
Three new manuals provide guidance on a topic crucial to SUMP development - measure selection for and the integration of measure packages into a SUMP.There are three manuals, one for beginner, intermediate, and advanced cities respectively,
They all provide recommendations, ratings systems for priorities of measures, and checklists tailored to each city type. Each manual has its own thematic focus.
Using this information as a basis, cities will develop their ability to create road maps for their own SUMP measure development. To read the manuals, click here.
Three days of SUMPs in Sofia
SUMPs-Up came to Sofia for three days of intense learning, exchange, and mutual inspiration. Cities from the SUMP Learning Progamme (SLP), Bulgarian mobility practitioners, and national level actors took part in various activities between 13-15 February.
The first day gathered the learning group for the second SLP. This consists of small- or medium-sized cities with limited experience in sustainable urban mobility that are determined to develop a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). 13 cities from 7 countries gathered in Sofia for their first workshop.
They learned from Erik Stok from Hengelo in the Netherlands how important involving citizens in the SUMP process is: “The participatory process makes politicians accountable to the citizens”. Later in the afternoon, the SLP 2 cities held a rich discussion about the cooperation challenges they face. They reiterated the need for better links between the local and national level and support to guide their work, be that frameworks or funding. Their day finished with a city tour on a vintage tram.
The second day saw 23 mobility practitioners from all over Bulgaria gathered to exchange experiences with sustainable mobility in their cities. Sofia and other cities presented the measures they are using to transform the mobility mindset in the country. Sofia focused on its parking policy and pedestrianisation measures. Group discussions followed.
On the third and final day in the Bulgarian capital, SUMPs-Up gathered national level mobility actors. Key messages at the event were that a national level SUMP framework is vital to guide and support cities, and that national level guidelines and an approval process are needed to ensure consistency in the plans developed.
Alan O'Brien from JASPERS emphasised that "mobility doesn't respect territorial boundaries". Cities and regions need to look beyond municipal lines, consider their mobility links and shared needs, and work together.
Registration just opened for the European Commission's 5th European Conference on Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) on 14-15 May in Nicosia, Cyprus.
The Conference is Europe's leading annual event for all those involved in putting the SUMP concept into practice.
Representatives of local and regional authorities, policy makers, urban mobility planners, academics and other urban mobility professionals are especially welcome.
In line with the European Commission having dedicated the year 2018 to the promotion of multimodality, the theme of this year's conference is multimodality. To register, click here.
In some parts of the European Union, Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning and Plans (SUMPs) remain rare. Knowledge exists within the SUMP as to why that is the case, but until recently there had been no systematic in-depth empirical assessment that collected comprehensive data on the issue.
The new report from CIVITAS SUMPs-Up fills this gap. Based on a needs assessment that collected responses from mobility experts and over 300 cities, it examines SUMP take-up across Europe.
It emerged that good practice examples and peer-to-peer learning are the types of support that cities most desire. Only 6% of surveyed cities said they did not need any assistance.
Access to funding and addressing transport challenges were named as being the two key drivers for cities developing SUMPs.
To read the full report, click here.
The SUMPs-Up team was out in full force at the CIVITAS Forum 2017. As well as having their own stand in the SUMP corner alongside CIVITAS PROSPERITY and CIVITAS SUITS, they hosted a session on tools for data gathering, appraisal, and simulation. Participants trialled four tools, all of which were selected from the new CIVITAS Tool Inventory. The Tool Inventory was created together with CIVITAS SATELLITE and was also presented during the session.
Following the presentation, participants broke off into four groups to receive a demonstration of and to discuss the utility of the tools that they had in front of them. SUMPs-Up also helped organise a World Cafe session on the administrative barriers to SUMP development, which was led by CIVITAS PROSPERITY.
This session saw representatives of cities from three countries with low SUMP take-up - Bulgaria, Hungary, and Greece - describing their experiences of working in challenging governance systems. A key lesson was that finding ways to align and meet the interests of the different districts within a city is vitally important.
Are you searching for guidance on what elements to include in your own Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP)? Then the CIVITAS SUMP Registry is here to help.
This new online database from the CIVITAS SUMPs-Up project brings together up-to-date SUMPs from across Europe and beyond, cities spanning all sizes, and in many languages. To find the plan most relevant to your needs, you can search by country, population, and language.
It is particularly useful for cities and local authorities at the development stage of the SUMP cycle, although it still contains many vital lessons for those at the measure selection, implementation, or evaluation stage.
Discover plans from your region, look at the approaches from cities of a similar size, or find documents in the language(s) you are writing your SUMP in. Look through the list and be inspired by the form that SUMPs can take, and consider the transformative effect one could have on your town or city. See the Registry here.
You can also upload your SUMP. It only takes a few minutes and enables you to showcase your SUMP to a Europe-wide audience of planning authorities, sustainable mobility practitioners, and policy makers. Click here to do so.
The second SUMPs-Up General Assembly took place in Budapest from 22-23 May.
All partners and city partners were present at the meeting, which provided an opportunity for those present to share their knowledge and experiences.
On topics where the SUMPs-Up project team can provide support, group discussions took place to find solutions to challenges that participants had faced.
As part of the project, each of the seven partner cities will implement their own SUMP innovation(s).
To help move these forward, a World Café was organised that enabled cities to discuss their respective plans. Here are a couple of highlights:
Malmö
When discussing the planned Poly-SUMP for south-west Scania, the group considered how best to get all municipalities on board. It was recommended that the regional board should be used more actively and that benefits for small municipalities be emphasised.
Sofia
With Sofia seeking to increase public participation, the city's plans for an interactive website were commended. Utilising a mix of participation methods and having a presence at popular events like city fairs were also mentioned as ways to reach different target groups.
The event demonstrated that the cooperative spirit is strong within the SUMPs-Up group.
Find out more about the City Partners and see the full list of planned innovations on the Cities page.