Urban mobility is a critical issue that impacts city dwellers’ lives in numerous ways. From commute times and pollution levels, to safety issues and safety threats, mobility plays an integral role in all aspects of life in cities.
Successful urban mobility strategies must encompass multiple key dimensions, such as modal integration, congestion efficiency and emissions reductions.
Towards a more sustainable future
As the world’s population continues to migrate into cities, they must become as liveable for their residents as possible. This means making it easy for residents to access public transportation, cycle paths and walking networks as a form of travel; also reducing traffic fatalities and air pollution while simultaneously limiting congestion and energy consumption.
Change can be daunting when it comes to mobility patterns. Therefore, innovative solutions must be put into place that enable cities to reduce private transport usage, shift trips toward sustainable modes, and create improved and safer infrastructure.
MobiliseYourCity project’s SUMP Guidelines offer detailed guidance for planning, implementation and monitoring a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). Featuring examples and instruments of good practice used by planning authorities as well as good practices from previous SUMP plans developed together with city representatives of SUMP community (including an updated checklist ), these Guidelines offer useful assistance during each step in developing an SUMP cycle. They were written with close consultation from this community of cities with updates being included annually – most recently 2023!
The World Bank’s approach
The World Bank works with cities to transform urban mobility. This involves infrastructure construction and upgrades as well as policy and institutional changes. With car ownership on the rise in many countries, sustainable urban design interventions may reduce traffic congestion, road safety risks, public transport ridership increases and reduced energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Urban transportation modes vary based on factors like location, social status, affordability, public transit quality and parking availability. Teleworking may also play a factor here; thus creating groups of “mobility-deprived” individuals who may have limited access to employment and services outside the central city area.
Successfully altering the urban mobility ecosystem requires taking an integrative approach and measures across all modes of transport, with initiatives across modal share undergoing gradual shifts over a five-year time period. Public investment must also be included when seeking these changes.
Challenges
Car ownership creates congestion and pollution that deteriorate quality of life for city dwellers while jeopardizing economic development. Cities can address these challenges through innovative mobility solutions that move hundreds of millions of trips away from private cars onto public and active transportation modes.
To do so, they must gain an in-depth knowledge of their urban transport ecosystem, diagnosing issues that impede mobility today and projecting desired future states. To do so successfully, this requires engaging all city officials as well as experts with experience developing and prioritizing long-term transportation initiatives in a joint process.
One of the primary challenges in improving efficiency on congested freeways and arterial streets lies in increasing efficiency through smart traffic management systems which offer real-time information and optimize flow, intelligent parking solutions, micromobility (including walking, cycling and e-scooters) use increase, as well as construction/modernization of multimodal hubs serving to connect different modes of transport.
Solutions
Urban mobility solutions must be accessible and affordable for all citizens, while at the same time being environmentally sustainable and improving quality of life. Furthermore, they must offer alternatives to personal vehicles while accommodating changing land-use patterns.
Traffic congestion poses a health threat, while maintaining ageing infrastructure costs are putting strain on city budgets. Cities must reshape transportation systems to prioritise green public transit while encouraging residents to use shared mobility services like buses, trains and ferries more frequently.
Innovative digital technology can provide solutions to these challenges. Smart ticketing systems, for instance, can optimize traffic flows while intelligent road infrastructure helps avoid congestion. Furthermore, micromobility solutions such as e-scooters and cycling offer efficient first/last mile connections to public transit that reduce demand for car travel.