One of the first activities in SUITS is the assessment of participating cities, with regard to the existing situation of sustainability in terms of mobility and transport. With the assistance of local change agents, external evaluators conduct an extensive capacity and resource assessment that would evidence the gaps, which refrain the successful development of SUMPs. The assessment is analysing resources skills and motivations, at an organizational level, evaluating data availability and usability, and at institutional levels, underlying rules of the game under the existing political and regulatory framework.

After the assessment of the existing information, strategies are defined on how to transform passenger and freight transport data into valuable information that can be used to support the decision making process in relation to mobility actions. SUITS carries out Identification of the gaps, specific to each participating city, related to its capacity to provide mobility of people and freight, underlying strengths, weakness, opportunity, threats points through SWOT analyses. The gap analysis is finally structured in such a way that it may be also suitable for other small and medium sized cities.

Contextualisation of project cities report 

The report is based on the results of a comprehensive characterisation and contextualisation survey that assessed the sociodemographic, economic, cultural and political context of the cities as well as their actual situation in terms of mobility and transport, their main activities and their limitations in this field.  It also presents the methodology for assessing the capacity of cities to plan and implement mobility plans and discusses the challenges that many cities face in this respect. Furthermore, the report presents the results of the assessment of the cities participating in SUITS and the key messages and implications for the transfer of knowledge from larger to smaller cities.

Coordinating authors: Sofia Kalakou, Sebastian Spundflasch

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Evaluation Framework report 

The Evaluation Framework aims to guide and support the capacity assessment of each city to develop and implement transport plans. This framework is designed taking into account the scalability principle that may allow future deployment and application to medium-smaller cities and to different economic and cultural environments. The framework is a critical success factor of the capacity assessment, since it will allow a common approach when engaging with each Local Authority, from large to small size cities.   It sets a wider range of factors/ indicators to be evaluated, leading to a deeper understanding of current and future issues that Local Authorities (LA) deals with while planning and, in a subsequent stage, implementing transport measures.  

Coordinating authors: Sofia Martins, Sophia Kalakou, Isabel Pimenta

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Report on Research and Gap Analysis on Data Collection and Analysis Methods 

The report aims to provide an introduction to the current strategies available and used by medium-sized European cities for collecting data on passengers and freight movements, including traditional and more technologically, automated methods.  It provides  information on the current gaps and difficulties in data collection processes, which SUITS can address with its capacity building activities.  A key section of the report is the analysis of information regarding urban mobility data, which enables the identification relevant problems of the cities. The report presents methods and solutions for data collection that have been developed around Europe and identifies the requirements of local authorities in relation to the collection and usage of data on passengers and freight movements.

Coordinating author: M Dolores Herrero

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Social Impact Assessment Report 

The report provides a methodological framework for assessing Social Impact of transport measures.    Literature review and accompanying survey on Social Impact Assessment (SIA) have been used to develop a set of factors, which are used to qualitatively check the outputs.   The report presents the current debates around SIA and measurement approaches applied to sustainable transport, especially in terms of the breadth of the criteria used for assessment, the reliance on quantification and the role of citizen engagement, focusing on  the relationship between transport innovation and new mobility paradigms, and how there has been a shift in thinking about the relationship between transport and quality of life.  

Coordinating author: Andree Woodcock

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Social Impact Assessment Survey 2020 Report

 

Social Impact Assessment Survey 2020 Report The report builds on earlier research into Social Impact Assessment (SIA) carried out in 2017, to understand the level of common understanding about SIA and its application to sustainable transport measures, amongst the SUITS team and other related projects. In summer 2020, a second piece of research was carried out to discover how ‘social impact assessment’ and ‘social impact’ in general was viewed across a wider range of practitioners, outside the project team itself. This took the form of 21 in-depth interviews (across 7 countries) to gather perceptions of social impact assessment and related social equity issues of transport. The level of citizen participation during SUMP planning had been a positive experience for participants but had also raised awareness that assessing social impact and involving citizens in planning could be done better. Improving the level and inclusivity of consultation is crucial to gaining better exchange of views with wider public participation and improved information-sharing to inform decision-making. Social Impact Assessment is an important part of planning which could become the focus for better ongoing citizen engagement and reducing transport poverty.

                                    Coordinating authors: Janet Saunders, Andree Woodcock

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