Meet Polis and its members at the SUMP Conference in Groningen

The long-awaited 2019 SUMP Conference will open its doors on Monday 17 June at De Oosterpoort. Participants will be welcomed by Peter den Ousten, Mayor of Groningen, who will pronounce a welcome address on behalf of the city. What role does sustainable mobility play in Groningen? What’s behind the city’s longstanding culture of sustainable urban mobility planning? Mayor Den Ousten will provide an introduction to these questions, whereas representatives from the Municipality of Groningen will go more in depth in several parallel sessions on different topics. Polis Secretary General Karen Vancluysen will moderate the opening plenary session.

On the second day of the conference, the plenary session will give participants the chance to hear from the protagonists of the 2018 SUMP Award, which recognises local and regional authorities for excellence in sustainable urban mobility planning. Nicola Kane from Transport for Greater Manchester, winner of the 2018 SUMP Award, will be on stage alongside Kerstin Burggraf, City of Dresden and Alain Groff from the City of Basel.

At the end of the second day, Xavier Sanyer from the Metropolitan Transport Authority of Barcelona will deliver a keynote speech on their effort to achieve the most efficient, safe and sustainable transport system and the implementation of the new 2020-2025 mobility plan. Polis Director for Policy and Projects Ivo Cré will also intervene in the closing plenary session.

Many more representatives from local authorities across Europe will take the floor to exchange ideas on the updated SUMP guidelines and the challenges of planning for sustainable and active cities. Ile-de-France’s Francoise Guaspare, chair of the Polis Working Group on Governance, will present on regulating new mobility services for their integration into a multimodal transport network. Pedro Homem de Gouveia, from the Municipality of Lisbon, will moderate a session on making cities more inclusive and accessible for all. Sergio Fernandez Balaguer, from Madrid’s public transport company EMT, will present how the Spanish capital is developing its charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.

The cities of Budapest, Helmond, Thessaloniki, Rotterdam and the Belgian region of Flanders are also in the programme and will present on the work they have been doing in the fields of public involvement, automated driving, innovative financing methods and parking management.

The full programme of the 6^th Conference on Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans is available here. Visit the event page featuring additional information about the side events taking place during or after the conference, the site visits and some practical information on how to get to the venue.