Sustainable urban mobility plans: How do they work?

Abstract

The growing demand for passenger and freight transport in cities, resulting from the population growth in urbanized areas, has led to increasing problems with congestion, environmental pollution and, as a consequence, to a decrease in quality of life. This problem was noticed by the European Commission, which began to promote the concept of sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs). The efficient implementation of SUMPs requires tools for its evaluation. However, in the literature, most proposed assessment tools relate mainly to passenger transport, omitting the freight transport. The purpose of this paper is to utilize a multiple criteria analysis with the use of the Promethee method in order to assess the level of advancement of selected European Union (EU) capital cities in the field of sustainable urban mobility plan formulation and implementation. This method has been applied on the basis of a survey conducted among representatives of 15 EU capital cities and analyses of transportation plans. This research shows that cities that have a comprehensive transport plan consistently collaborate with different stakeholder groups, have implemented the greatest number of measures in the field of sustainable urban transport, and have achieved the best results in terms of safety and NO2 (nitrogen oxides) and PM (particulate matter) emissions.