QUEST Audits: Total Quality Management for urban transport policies

The project supports the EC’s intention to promote the adoption of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans, as laid out in the White Paper on Transport published in April 2011.

QUEST has three primary objectives:

• To develop an auditing and certification tool based on total quality management (TQM) for the evaluation and improvement of sustainable urban mobility in fifty medium-sized cities in Europe (population 50,000 to 300,000 people);
• To produce tailored action plans for participating cities, offering detailed recommendations for the improvement of policymaking processes and medium- to long-term mobility strategies;
• To issue QUEST Certificates to cities in recognition of achievements and/or progress towards sustainable transport.

The project involves expert cities Ghent, Bath, San Sebastian, Padova and Gävle and Polis member CDV. Following QUEST’s kick-off meeting in Ghent in June 2011, the team has been busy reviewing the state-of-the-art in urban mobility assessment, developing city selection criteria and preparing a dissemination strategy. The QUEST website will go online on October; for more information in the meantime please contact project dissemination manager Ivo Cré.