Cities in motion – Volume II: ‘Leadership for action’
05/09/2023
Cities in motion - Volume II: 'Leadership for action'
The second volume of Cities in motion, titled 'Leadership for action', delves into the diverse aspects of leadership and the concrete actions taking place in the field of urban mobility.
A long road ahead
Pedestrians crossing a colourful zebra crossing
The challenges facing urban mobility in the years ahead are of unprecedented scale and significance. As we navigate an era defined by rapid urbanisation, the pressing issue of climate change, and the persistent rise of inequality, the imperative to address these challenges has never been more paramount. In fact, it is safe to say that these challenges represent not just the defining issues of this decade, but they also have the potential to shape the trajectory of urban development and sustainability for the entire century.
The path to conquering these challenges may be difficult, but it is a journey well worth undertaking. While national and international leaders hesitate, our cities and regions are leading the way, actively working towards a more sustainable and equitable future. The need for bold measures in reallocating street space, regulating urban vehicle access, enhancing public transit and shared mobility services, and developing alternative fuel infrastructure (among others) has never been more crucial.
But what does genuine leadership truly embody in action? Let's dive in!
Leadership for action
Citizens freely roaming and enjoying some city roads
In this second volume of Cities in motion, we reflect on what leadership is truly about by exploring tangible actions taking place on the ground. By spotlighting initiatives driving transformative change, this volume illustrates that sustainable urban mobility is a collective effort, emphasizing the significance of political leadership and collaboration in addressing the forthcoming challenges. This year, local decision-makers demonstrated their commitment to taking decisive action at the POLIS’ Leadership Summit in Stockholm. Furthermore, as the EU's Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission gains momentum, we shift our gaze to 2030 and explore the efforts of POLIS members selected for the Mission as they strive to achieve the climate neutrality target.
We hope that this new volume of Cities in motion will serve as a source of inspiration for cities, regions, and stakeholders alike, prompting them to not only rethink conventional mobility paradigms but also to start putting actively those innovative ideas into practice through collaboration. Together, through sharing wisdom and best practices, we can forge a path toward a more sustainable and equitable future for all.
Moving forward (together)
At POLIS, leading by example and progressing together have been integral to our agenda. The second edition of Cities in motion showcases the remarkable contributions of our members: from capital cities like London, Brussels, and Madrid, to smaller municipalities such as Leuven, Groningen, and Strovolos, and leading knowledge institutes such as Cerema, CERTH, and Open Mobility Foundation - among many others.
It also reviews current actions, combining city expertise, pilot input, project partners, and relevant policy positions, including the soon-to-be-published Micromobility and E-mobility x Vision Zero papers, the Dynamic Curbside Management report, and SuM4ALL's Gender balance toolkit.
People in line to board a bus
In this second issue, we continue to emphasise the importance of inclusivity in urban mobility, an area to which POLIS has dedicated significant effort in recent years. In 2021, we introduced the Just Transition Agenda, placing affordability, safety, and inclusivity at the core of sustainable mobility policy. After all, moving forward requires not leaving anyone behind, and our articles reflect that by bringing attention to often underestimated yet essential aspects of inclusive mobility. Thus, we examine the relationship between mental health and travel, tackling the gender imbalance that exists within the transport sector, addressing existing weight bias in active mobility, and exploring what creating accessible futures truly entails.
'Leadership for action' also includes exclusive interviews with diverse mobility champions. With whom exactly, you wonder? Featuring road safety activist Giovanni Pintor, advocates and professors Francis Ray White and Rachel Aldred from the University of Westminster, and many more, this edition of Cities in motion offers something for every reader.
As we see across this issue of Cities in motion, universities, unions, foundations (and more) are a driving force behind progress, inspiring and bringing diverse stakeholders together. True leaders recognise that no city is an island, and that only by working with private partners, civil society, and citizens, they will be able to navigate political complexities, embrace innovation while making it policy-responsive, and create equity.
While urban integration remains a distant dream (at least for the time being), forward-thinking cities and organisations are already taking strides towards leveraging the potential of drones in transp...Read more
'Africa e-mobility revolution' is how Ampersand, a Rwandan start-up, presents its work with e-moto taxis in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, largest city, and economic centre. But, aside from technological...Read more
Dynamic curbside management could help solve current and future mobility issues. But what is it? And how can it be implemented?
European cities and regions are facing increasing demands for the mobil...Read more
Political debates related to noise and air pollution often ignore the negative externalities of mopeds and motorcycles. The LENS project aims to provide tools and enforcement techniques for cities, as...Read more
Exploring the perceptions and realities surrounding fat erasure in cycling and active transport has never been more urgent — now is the time to uncover potential pathways to challenge societal norms...Read more
La Rochelle’s Deputy Mayor Bertrand Ayral reveals how La Rochelle has continually pushed the boundaries of mobility planning, paving the way for other cities.
An interview with Bertrand Ayral, elab...Read more
Established in 1986 and with a population of over 70,000 inhabitants, the municipality of Strovolos is the second largest municipality in Cyprus after Limassol. But, aside from its facts and figures,...Read more
There is growing pressure on the urban space and energy grid from public on-street charging infrastructure, and while local authorities are facilitating their deployment, these efforts do not come wit...Read more
Worldwide, the transport sector is facing a significant gender imbalance and the sector finds itself at an important moment for action. Developed by POLIS with funding from the FIA Foundation and co-a...Read more
New mobility services (NMS) mean so many different things to so many different people. How can we merge research outputs with user views to ensure that everyone is on board? Basically, how can we co-c...Read more
As shared micromobility sweeps through cities, regulations and monitoring have become the preferred tools for taming its unruly nature. But are these rules truly unlocking the potential of micromobili...Read more
Project SUMP Turkey is designed to enable and promote the uptake and implementation of the SUMP concept in Turkish cities. It fosters continuous Policy Dialogue among Turkish stakeholders and EU count...Read more
The decisions urban mobility leaders make — and do not make — today will determine the trajectory of life for every citizen. A cleaner, more equitable future is theirs for the taking, should they...Read more
In June, Stockholm hosted POLIS’ Leadership Summit. The event convened high-level decision-makers from across the transport sector for a frank, honest and — most of all — collaborative exchange...Read more
By using an Urban Consolidation Centre (UCC) to deliver parcels with clean vehicles to the city's heart, Madrid reduced the travelled distance by 30% and greenhouse gas emissions by 80%, demonstrating...Read more
Eve Henrikson, General Manager of Uber Eats for Europe, discusses the sustainable transformation of Europe’s home delivery sector, from innovative approaches to tackling environmental challenges and...Read more
POLIS' Climate Neutral Cities Mission Taskforce was established at the end of 2022 and POLIS started to work with cities more in concrete ways and supporting them with their work on climate city contr...Read more
On 19 April 2023, a unique coalition of 50 public and private participants signed the Green Deal for Sustainable Logistics to promote sustainable logistics in Brussels. This initiative aims to make Br...Read more
In the heart of Barcelona, a high-stakes struggle unfolds — the quest for public space amid a bustling cityscape. As tourism and e-commerce converge, the challenge intensifies. But the City Council...Read more
The WHO may have declared COVID-19 as no longer representing a 'global health emergency', yet there is one silent epidemic that continues to pervade our cities and regions: each year, road safety cras...Read more
The decarbonisation of urban mobility is a political priority all over Europe. With public incentives and market growth, the number of e-vehicles is expanding. But zero emissions are not enough — el...Read more
MDS, CDS, API… These acronyms may leave many scratching their head in puzzlement; however, they are fast shaping the face of new mobility services and how local authorities and operators are coordin...Read more
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have the potential to revolutionise transport, but challenges still remain before they become a common sight on our streets. The PAV Interreg project has conducted successful...Read more
The city of Groningen has a tradition of progressive mobility policy, which focuses on a healthy living environment and changing travel behaviour. With new frameworks for multimodal traffic management...Read more
The journey of open data in mobility: exploring how public authorities have navigated progress, hurdles, and the promise of a data-driven future.
The sharing of mobility data by public authorities to...Read more
Digitalisation in public transport benefits many travellers. However, it requires extra efforts effort from a smaller yet sometimes already less resilient group of people. The low visibility of this g...Read more
'Member in the Spotlight' is back! To start the year off, we spoke to Groningen, winner of the 2023 Annual POLIS Award. From its support for active mobility to its engagement of stakeholders in urban...
Barcelona is the capital and the most populous city of Catalonia, and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,621,537, climbing to 4,200,000 for the metropolitan area.
The main tra...
Berlin is the capital city of Germany, and one of the sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million it is also Germany's largest city.
Berlin's urban transport development plan ("Stad...
Brussels Mobility is the public administration of the Brussels-Capital Region responsible for equipment, infrastructure and mobility issues. Its primary challenge is to facilitate economic development...
Budapest is the capital city of Hungary. With an estimated population of 1,752,286 over a land area of about 525 square kilometres, it is the 9th populous city in Europe; however, this size poses a se...
The Hellenic Institute of Transport (H.I.T.) is part of the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) which is a non-profit organization that directly reports to the General Secretariat for Re...
Cerema is the major public agency for developing and capitalising on public expertise in the fields of planning, regional cohesion, and ecological and energy transition. It offers unique state-of-the-...
Groningen is the largest municipality and economic engine of the Northern Netherlands. With more than 230,000 inhabitants, 140,000 jobs, 100,000 students en 180,000 people coming from the region every...
La Rochelle is a medium-sized city (163 000 inhabitants for the metropolitan area) which lies on the west coast of France in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region. The islands of Ré and Oléron are on its do...
Leuven is a dynamic and multicultural city in the Flemish region of Belgium, and the capital of the Flemish Brabant province. A dynamic and multicultural city, it shines because of its exemplary gover...
London is represented in Polis through the London European Partnership for Transport (LEPT), which is a partnership to coordinate, disseminate and promote the sustainable transport and mobility agenda...
Madrid City is the core of a very populated metropolitan area that now boasts nearly 6 million inhabitants. The area is the subject of intense urban sprawl and decentralisation of production, commerci...
The Open Mobility Foundation (OMF) is a nonprofit that develops open source tools for cities to manage mobility. Founded in 2019, the OMF brings together public and private sector stakeholders to unde...
The City of Paris experiences 6.6 million journeys each day; most of which are less than 3km, and 4 million of which are journeys between central and suburban Paris. This leads to problems of congesti...
Rogaland County is located on the south-west coast of Norway. The total population is approximately 460000 inhabitants. Stavanger is the county capital with approximately 130000 inhabitants. The twin-...
Stockholm is one of Europe's fastest-growing cities and has a population of almost 1 million. Stockholm’s climate work is driven by two key goals; making Stockholm fossil fuel-free and climate-posit...
The Municipality of Strovolos was established in 1986 and is the second largest Municipality in Cyprus after Limassol, with a population of over 70.000 inhabitants.
Today, Strovolos is a big city t...
The Climate-Neutral Cities Mission Taskforce provides a unique platform for our members to engage in a peer-to-peer exchange on how they can reach their transport decarbonisation targets....
From digitisation to active travel, logistics to electromobility, the Just Transition Taskforce raises discussions on how to place affordability, inclusivity, and accessibility at the heart of all urb...
Through the Regions Working Group, POLIS members share common challenges and solutions facing regional actors in the transition to more sustainable urban mobility....
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www.polisnetwork.eu
14/12/2024
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