MobiliseYourCity new SUMP guidelines offer African, Asian and Latin American cities a tailored methodology for mobility planning
Since its inception in 2016, the MobiliseYourCity Partnership has been a leading force in disseminating Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) worldwide. Responding to specific urban mobility challenges in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, the Partnership is now launching the MobiliseYourCity SUMP Guidelines.
Based on the European 'Guidelines for developing and implementing a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan', the MobiliseYourCity SUMP Guidelines (download the document here) bring together European knowledge in sustainable urban mobility planning and insights and lessons learned from practical implementation in MobiliseYourCity geographies. They are an attempt to adapt the time-tested, and widely adopted, European methodology to fit the contexts of the Global South, thereby empowering mobility practitioners and decision-makers, both within and outside the Partnership, in their current and future endeavours to plan for sustainable urban mobility.
What is a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP)?
A Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan is a strategic and integrated approach to deal effectively with the complexities of urban transport. Its core goal is to improve accessibility and quality of life by achieving a shift towards sustainable mobility.
A SUMP is both a product and a process. As a product, it is a planning document encapsulating the most relevant information from the SUMP’s elaboration. It is the tangible output that would be adopted by political decision-makers (ideally through a legislative act), guiding the responsible institutions in its implementation in the long, medium and short term. The structure and content of such a document reflect the elaboration process itself. As a process, a SUMP is a planning approach that follows a specific methodology and adheres to the principles specified in the European SUMP Guidelines.
Why adapt Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans to the context of cities in MobiliseYourCity geographies?
In Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, there exist diverse but common characteristics for urban mobility that differ from those of EU cities: lack of technical capacities of local governments, limited governance and institutional frameworks, low levels of private motorisation, a high share of active modes and public transport, and paratransit as the main, if not the only, mode of public transport.
What is the process of developing a SUMP?
The main objective of the SUMP Guidelines is to provide a methodology for developing a SUMP: the SUMP cycle. Drawing from strategic planning, the European SUMP Guidelines first developed and outlined this methodology to adapt it to the urban transport sector. Since then, it has provided the groundwork for elaborating every SUMP in the Globe. In this publication, we adapt the SUMP cycle to fit the specific contexts of the Global South.
The SUMP cycle consists of four phases with thirteen main steps further broken down into activities.
Can the national level support the development of a SUMP?
Urban mobility closely interlinks with other policy sectors, such as the environment, road safety, health, spatial planning, and energy. Local, regional, and national authorities elaborate such policies and plans.
Understanding the relationship between different governance levels and designing a framework that allows efficient coordination and adequate support from the national to the city level is crucial to improve the investment environment and bringing urban mobility systems on a sustainable, low-carbon track. The MobiliseYourCity Partnership has focused on an integrated approach since its inception, supporting the design of enabling national frameworks (NUMPs) and integrated urban mobility planning at the city level (SUMPs).
Download our NUMP Guidelines here.
If you are interested in learning more about SUMPs and the SUMP Cycle or are in the process of developing a SUMP for your city, download the Guidelines here.
The SUMP Guidelines are part of a comprehensive SUMP toolkit developed by MobiliseYourCity for local governments and urban mobility practitioners. The Toolkit provides valuable tools and trainings that can be used for each SUMP Phase.
Access the SUMP Toolkit here.
Many cities have already benefitted from MobiliseYourCity’s approach to developing SUMPs. Here is a selection of completed SUMP reports:
Yaoundé SUMP report (FR)
Santo Domingo SUMP report (ES)
Pristina SUMP report (EN)