REFOCUS – Regional and Local Mobility Planning Focusing on Inclusive Decision Support Tools

Decision-making in sustainable mobility planning is multifaceted and involves environmental, socio-economic and political issues. Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) require cooperation at different levels of governance (combining regional metropolitan and local policies), which means that institutional barriers need to be overcome. The involvement of citizens and other stakeholders, taking into account the prioritisation of proposed implementations and their funding, in order to create a realistic timetable and maximise the impact on the given functional area, plays an important role. Specific quantified, data-driven monitoring of progress and future SUMP updates is also necessary.

The REFOCUS project brings together 9 partners from 6 EU countries to exchange experiences on new (innovative) approaches to decision-support tools for sustainable and even zero-emission mobility planning, additionally taking into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mobility planning priorities.

Objectives

The overall objective of the project is to enhance regional and local capacities for integrative decision-making for zero-carbon mobility to ensure the transition to the next generation of SUMPs, which means: accelerating the implementation of SUMP measures and innovations (according to common technical specifications where required, prioritising interventions, ensuring regional integration and continuity of activities and more efficient use of resources); ensuring effective monitoring across different local/regional contents and different data management cultures; enhancing data-driven decision-making competences for the continuous planning and re-planning that SUMPs require.

Results

Transport, with its strong impact on energy consumption and climate change, is recognised as one of the main sources of pollution in the EU. Sustainable urban mobility planning is seen as an area of high priority for decarbonising transport and making the mobility system more efficient and thus greener. The mutual learning process of the REFOCUS project will contribute to the goal of sustainable urban mobility (SUM) by improving regional/local policies related to SUM planning and interventions. In parallel, it will improve the use of the structural funds of the participating areas, as it will optimise the efficiency of the interventions by overcoming current technical and competence limitations.

Coordinating and integrating local plans with regional strategies will maximise the goal of zero-carbon mobility for the whole region. The revision of local SUMPs will be supported by improved decision support and monitoring mechanisms.

 

Project partners

Coordinator:

• Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece (CERTH)

Partners:

• Istituto sui trasporti e la logistica, Italy (ITL)
• Region of Central Macedonia, Greece (RCM)
• Municipal City Institute of Lviv, Ukraine (Lviv)
• Municipal Enterprise ‘Susisiekimo Paslaugos’, Lithuania (Vilnius)
• City of Poznan, Poland (Poznan)
• Poznański Instytut Technologiczny, Poland (PIT)
• City of Sint-Niklaas, Belgium (St.Niklaas)
• City of Stockholm, Sweden (Stockholm

Advisory partner:

• POLIS network, Belgium (POLIS)