A Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) is one of the main instruments used worldwide by public administrations to plan mobility systems in an integrated way, looking at environmental and climate change aspects. Following the EU endeavours to cut emissions from the transport sector by at least 55% by 2030 and by 90% by 2050, all European competitive cities are currently looking into developing or updating a SUMP strategy.

A SUMP combines technical planning with the social-political dimension and builds on relevant sector plans, e.g. urban development plan or climate plan. This comprehensive and overarching type of process and document is thus laying the foundation for future and green investments in the mobility sector in the city. Beyond that, SUMP is also supposed to cover the Functional Urban Area (FUA). This regional approach is of great importance for a better and more sustainable organisation of interurban transport flows of passengers and freight.

The SUMP establishes horizontal and vertical cross-departmental working structures and provides a highly accepted and evidence-based work programme, which should build the foundation for a mobility transformation towards improved accessibility and quality of life through a shift towards sustainable mobility. This requires a thorough assessment of the status quo and future trends, a common vision, strategic objectives, and an integrated set of short-, medium- and long-term measures from different policy areas, including regulation, promotion, financing, technology and infrastructure.

In contrast to traditional master planning approaches, the SUMP concept emphasises stakeholder cooperation, public-private partnerships, and mobility vision co-creation together with citizens. As an important component SUMP includes scenario building (e.g. zero-emission scenarios) and strives for thorough monitoring and evaluation of the measure implementation process and the evaluation of the achievements along with SMART targets.

An excellent package of guiding documents is available from www.eltis.org and is constantly being adapted and aligned to wider EU policies (Green Deal, Urban Mobility Framework, Efficient and Green Mobility Package).