SUMP Central

The Interreg Central Europe project LOW-CARB is candidate under the “Green Europe” category, and will be assessed by a Jury led by Michel Barnier, who holds the Chair of Honor of the Regiostars Awards Jury this year. A panel of high-level academics in the respective fields will select the finalists. We are looking forward to that!

As a novelty, in 2021 the finalists are invited to training sessions on communication as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities in October. The winners in the five categories, and the winner of the public choice, will receive their well-deserved prize at the festive REGIOSTARS ceremony, to take place in Dubrovnik, Croatia in December 2021.

And why should LOW-CARB win? LOW-CARB showed how public transport provides a pathway towards an integrated, zero-emission mobility system in functional urban areas. The projects made six urban areas and their surrounding communities “greener” and prepared them for the transition to a carbon-neutral future in Central Europe’s communities. Therefore, ten project partners teamed up to facilitate and shape this transition by tackling burning issues of SUMP, multimodal regional PT systems and their governance models.

Check out our website with all our outputs and results… We recommend to start with our lessons learnt brochure or the LOW-CARB guidelines for integrated low-carbon mobility planning in the functional urban area!

Regiostars awards are the yearly competition organised by DG REGIO since 2008: it has become the Europe’s label of excellence for EU-funded projects, which demonstrate innovative and inclusive approaches to regional development. Each year hundreds of projects compete in five categories: Smart Europe, Green Europe, Fair Europe, Urban Europe, and the topic of the year. The public can participate by voting for their favourite project among all finalists for the public choice award. By bringing about solutions to common challenges and tapping into the biggest opportunities, the Regiostars have inspired regions to deliver evermore-impactful EU regional policy.

Find more information here.

Our partners from Kraków and Skawina kicked off a metropolitan SUMP for the metropolitan region of Kraków – using the SUMP Self-Assessment Tool, co-created by LOW-CARB. This is one of the many LOW-CARB results we are proud of. Check out the others in the LOW-CARB Lessons-Learnt Brochure, which is out now. You will find our main results and take-aways in this document.

Planning for integrated and low-carbon mobility for public transport (PT) was at the core of the LOW-CARB project. The main objective was to increase public transport accessibility in the functional urban area (FUA) of cities in central Europe, thereby creating good planning practices, tools, and strategies with high take-up potential.

This could only be achieved when planners in municipalities, public transport authorities and companies join forces and cooperate beyond administrative, departmental, and organizational boundaries. With these objectives in mind, six LOW-CARB partner teams (in FUAs of Leipzig, Brno, Szeged, Koprivnica, Kraków, Skawina and Parma) developed action plans, pilots and tools for innovative low-carbon mobility.

Find more information about LOW-CARB and our knowledge resources here.

A contribution by Nermin Palić, Sarajevo.

The day has finally arrived. On December 30, 2020, the Sarajevo City Council adopted the Plan for Sustainable Urban Mobility of the Sarajevo Canton and the City of Sarajevo – SUMP. Key actors from government institutions, the non-governmental sector, the professional public, the academic community, as well as interested citizens were invited to the online presentation. With this strategic document, Sarajevo has shown its committment to work towards sustainable development, in line with the 2030 Agenda (Global Development Agenda), adopted at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in New York on September 25, 2015, and sustainable development goals.

The Sarajevo SUMP is the result of the regional project “Sustainable Urban Mobility in the Countries of Southeast Europe II” within the framework of German development cooperation. The project is part of the Open Regional Fund for Southeast Europe – Energy Efficiency (ORF-EE) implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German government.

The main pillars on which SUMP Sarajevo is based are: cycling and walking as an active form of mobility, urban public transport, individual personal transport, city logistics and sustainable spatial planning and urban mobility.

Sarajevo already has a respectable base for developing a sustainable urban environment for mobility. The density of the urban public transport network covers the entire territory of the urban part of Sarajevo. There are various modes of transportation. The cycle path is under construction. One part, of planned 14 km, has already been built and released for usage. In the past 5 years, a bike-sharing service has been introduced in Sarajevo, just like, last year, the e-scooter sharing service (although not quite legally regulated from the safety aspect).

However, these options are not used at their full capacity. One of the key problems is in the very consciousness of the citizens. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country with a dominant use of passenger cars, with an average age of 16 years (mostly with a Euro 3 engine). This is one of the reasons why Sarajevo Canton has a serious problem with excessive air pollution. In addition to this, there is an obsolete vehicle fleet in public transport in Sarajevo. Transportation services are not integrated, nor is the method of ticket payment. It can also be pointed out that there is no digitized timetable and tracking of vehicles at stops. Furthermore, the culture of using bicycles for transportation purposes has not even existed in the past 6-7 years. In addition, there is an insufficiently developed awareness and vision of cyclists as equal participants in traffic, both by motor vehicle drivers and pedestrians.

Fortunately, all these shortcomings are covered by the adopted SUMP, which will be addressed in the next 5 years. Despite this plan, it is very important and necessary to increase promotional and educational activities using all existing tools to raise citizens’ awareness of the activities pointed out by the SUMP in order to achieve a better quality of life for citizens in terms of safety, health, and environmental protection.

There is a lot of work to be done, but given the vision that is being pursued, the implementation of SUMP creates joy in the eyes of citizens.

The complete SUMP for Sarajevo can be found following this link.

Author: Nermin Palić, Ph.D. (c) Academic Head of Transport/Traffic Engineering Department at University College “CEPS-Center for Business Studies” and founder of UMobSa.com

References:

Plan održive urbane mobilnosti Kantona Sarajevo i Grada Sarajevo, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Sarajevo, 2020.

Mehanović, M., Palić, N.:   A model of managing the urban mobility planning process, EMC Review, Apeiron, god VIII, br. II, str. 300, Banja Luka 2018. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.7251/EMC1802300M)

Palić, N., Cinac, Dž.: Analysis of traffic system in Sarajevo in order to focus its further development towards European standards, EDUK@TOR, Sveučilište/Univerzitet Vitez, Vitez, 2015.

Join the GECKO project on Wednesday, 24 March at 15:00 – 16:30 CET for a webinar on Managing New Mobility: How to Regulate Automated Vehicles The webinar will provide an overview of regulations around automated vehicles in jurisdictions across Europe and beyond. A local authority (Michael Glotz-Richter, Bremen, Germany) and an expert on the regulatory perspective (Caroline Busquet, Absiskey) will share their views and present their priorities in navigating this emerging technology. Your participation in the following discussion is welcome! To reserve your spot, register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3742261905224230160
Places are limited.

Nerman Palic is a researcher and lecturer at the University in Sarajevo and at the “CEPS-Center for Business Studies” in Kiseljak, where he works at the Faculty of Transport and Communications. “My area of interest is sustainable urban mobility and all the concepts on which it is based, such as the development and promotion of the use of urban public transport, traffic safety, planning, and environmental awareness in traffic.” We are happy to have you on board at the SUMP-Central, especially as we can link to your website where you promote the concept of sustainable urban mobility planning in Bosnia and Herzegowina in local language.  

For the last 3 years the InterregCE project, LOW-CARB, has challenged the status quo of mobility planning in central Europe (CE). Its project partners stepped up and out of their comfort zones to develop highly innovative strategies, action plans, pilots, tools, and skills development trainings that foster low carbon mobility and transportation. All of which were addressed by introducing a new geographic scope for planning for mobility— the Functional Urban Area (FUA). Although this transnational project comes to an end it leaves behind a strong legacy of low carbon options for sustainable urban mobility planning, upon which urban planners in central Europe will continue to advance.

The concrete accomplishments of LOW-CARB include: the development of three strategies to guide urban planners with topics on open-data management, governance, and centring public transport as the backbone of low-carbon transportation systems; the co-creation of four data-based Action Plans for integrated mobility planning beyond administrative borders with key mobility stakeholders; and the demonstration of innovative low carbon mobility technologies in six pilot FUAs. The partners collectively created over 200 individual measures for low-carbon mobility! These actions have led to an estimated leverage of 107 Mio € for investments in sustainable mobility offers in FUAs by 2025.

LOW-CARB’s activities have resulted in several outputs important for future creation of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP), including the following novel tools.

1) The SUMP-Self-Assessment Tool guides planners in local central European languages through the entire SUMP process at multiple geographic scopes. It is both a monitoring and evaluation tool that provides tailored feedback according to the assessment of unique mobility situations.

2) REACHIE, an interactive journey planner map intended for both planners and civilians to visualize available options when making multimodal trips. The routes are integrated with public transport services and estimated carbon savings are calculated for using multimodal options over conventional automobiles.

3) Like REACHIE, theSUMP GIS Monitoring Tool is a data-based  tool using maps, but it visualizes mobility measures of multiple measure packages when planning or implementing a SUMP. It provides planners with a visual cumulative overview of the measures they have selected for the FUA and provides metadata about them. The tool aids coordination and engagement activities during SUMP processes. Both REACHIE and the SUMP GIS Monitoring tools were created for their respective FUAs (City of Leipzig and Brno) and show good potential for being replicated as data applications in other CE regions.

4) The recently launched SUMP Central Competence Centre is an online platform and one-stop-shop for local planning authorities and urban practitioners to access resources and content that can support them with developing SUMPs. This knowledge-database provides news, good practices, exemplar SUMPs, tools, and access to expert networks, all in central European languages!

Not only did LOW-CARB reduce transport-related carbon emissions by introducing the above-mentioned innovations, but also increased the competencies of local authorities to better plan and transition to carbon-neutral mobility systems.  It transferred its knowledge through skills development trainings, interactive public events, and a follower program with nine other twinning cities and regions.
LOW-CARB’s public events reached over 400 participants while presenting at conferences, hosting webinars, pilot launches and more. The project’s 10 partners were also responsible for having trained a further 620 people in local, national, and transnational sessions. These actions have created institutional co-operation, fostered joint financing, and facilitated the FUAs to become the leaders of central Europe for low carbon mobility. The FUAs are Leipzig (DE), Koprivnica (CR), Brno (CZ), Skawina and Krakow (PL), Szeged (Hu), and Parma (IT).   The pursuit of low carbon mobility in CE does not end with LOW-CARB, much of its development goals will be furthered in other capitalisation projects and frameworks, most notably the InterregCE Dynaxibilty4CE project. For more info about LOW-CARB’s activities and outputs, visit the project’s news board and document repository where its pilot handbooks, strategies, and tool factsheets are available in the main central European languages.

As part of the Interreg CE LOW-CARB project, two new innovative tools were recently launched to bring together interested citizens and urban planners in a unique approach to a sustainable future driven by mobility and low-emission transport. The SUMP-central Competence Center and the SUMP Self-Assessment Tool are two tools that already demonstrate promising improvements and support for sustainable urban mobility planning (SUMP) for planners at the local and national levels facing integrated planning challenges related to low-emission mobility in Central Europe.

SUMP-central Competence Center

SUMP-central Competence Center, was officially launched on November 30, 2020. It is a new online platform and knowledge hub dedicated to providing news, best practices, learning materials and resources to support planners in developing SUMPs in Central Europe (CE). Although similar platforms already exist, LOW-CARB identified further needs and requirements for Central European planners for SUMP resources during many projects and trainings where it was received feedback that SUMP resources should be available in more Central European languages and to make the planner better able to cope with the challenges facing the Central European area. SUMP Central Competence Center is trying to fill these gaps. The following is a multi-directional approach, paired with machine translations, to provide local planning authorities and urban practitioners with a single platform of knowledge in their local language. It does not seek to replace existing platforms, but to create a better connection with them, providing users with a better experience in finding relative SUMP information in a language they understand. The site is available in Polish, Czech, Croatian, Hungarian, Slovak, Slovenian, English, Italian and German.

The platform also meets an additional challenge for planners, and that is finding professionals who have experience in switching to low-emission mobility systems. On the platform, experts, networks and stakeholders can offer their contact information and area of expertise for planners to contact! By connecting planners with others on the ground, new international relationships can be achieved for those who are just at the beginning of their transition. Find out how you can get involved in this open call (https://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/SUMP-Central-Open-Call.pdf) if you are a mobility expert or interested in sustainable urban mobility planning.

SUMP Self-Assessment Tool

The SUMP Self-Assessment Tool (SSAT) was developed in collaboration with the CIVITAS SUMP-up project and is intended for local authorities and practitioners to assess the level of readiness of the region for the development of the SUMPs and or how closely their existing strategic mobility plan is linked to the latest European guidelines for SUMPs. Since its launch exactly a year ago, it has soon become a source for the use of tools by many urban planners, which is not surprising given its wide range of applicability.

As part of the tool, 30 to 45 questions (depending on the mobility situation of each region) will determine the quality of the strategic mobility plan or planning approach in the region and provide an assessment of general planning activities. After only 20-30 minutes, you (or your team) will also receive further guidance, resources and suggestions based on a unique assessment of the mobility situation in the region and identifiable contextual needs.

The tool generates individualized codes that can be used to re-enter the same grade multiple times, continue where you left off in the survey, or access a review of previous results and recommendations. This is especially useful when organizing stakeholder sessions, necessary during the SUMP process, without losing information from one meeting to another! In times when online interaction is increasingly becoming the primary method of engagement, stakeholder gathering has faced severe obstacles, but this tool can be used to communicate effectively with mobility stakeholders. The LOW-CARB project has already hosted numerous workshops using it as a tool to implement activities.

SSAT is actively implemented in over 300 cities and regions around the world! It is currently available in 14 European languages and can be used regardless of the territorial boundaries of the planning authority. In short, SSAT is applicable at multiple levels of planning, either at the local city level, at the level of a functional urban area, or at the level of multiple cities. Find out more about the platform in this fact sheet (https://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/LOW-CARB-SUMP-Self-Assessment-Tool-Factsheet.pdf)

For more information on the LOW-CARB project and other results visit:
https://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/LOW-CARB.html