The Cities

The capacity building process of SUITS will be developed in eight cities in seven countries (Italy, Greece, Spain, Germany, Romania, Lithuania and UK). These cities have been selected to illustrate variations in approaches to developing and financing sustainable urban mobility and dealing with problems associated with freight and passenger transport. They will provide the test bed for the development and use of SUITS capacity building material. The cities will share best practices, and through implementing project outputs (e.g. freight data collection methods and financial decision support system) will directly improve the effectiveness of their planning, financing, implementation and evaluation of new transport measures.

The cities committed to SUITS are the following:

Alba Iulia

Alba Iulia, the Other Capital, bears a heavy name in the history of Romania due to the important historic events which have left their mark on the city. Alba Iulia is a city of national importance and it was nominated in 2012 as a European Destination of Excellence, by the EDEN program administered by the European Commission.
Alba Iulia Municipality has a population of 74 000 inhabitants and is situated in the Center part of Romania. The communitarian development along with the creation of conditions for economic and social progress for the whole community is one of the main objectives of the Alba Iulia Municipality.
The City Hall of Alba Iulia Municipality has benefited during the period of the past few years from the financial support of the European Union and has implemented European projects with a total value of more than 150 million Euros, while being the most important investor in the city during the last 7 years.
Alba Iulia has already adopted the SUMP which is currently under evaluation by the Regional Development Agency.
SUITS will enable Alba Iulia Municipality to develop innovative capacities for attracting new funding for the implementation of the projects proposed through the elaborated SUMP, and it will also support the municipality in adopting new and innovative procedures at the municipal level along with the strengthening of its capacity building.

Coventry

Coventry City Council is now part of the West Midlands Combined Authority which includes Birmingham and six other Metropolitan boroughs.

Coventry is UK’s eighth largest city and a regional and industrial centre with a very strong link to transportation. Across the West Midlands region Coventry is considered as the leader in transport innovation. Over half of its residents travel by car, with only 1 per cent using bikes.

Birmingham has already adopted a SUMP called Birmingham Connected, which will help further develop the SUITS proposal in the surrounding West Midlands Metropolitan area including Coventry

Planned SUITS innovation:

Establish a shared understanding of capacity building andorganisational change.
Becoming a learning organisation.

Stuttgart

With 620.000 inhabitants Stuttgart is the sixth-largest city in Germany and the center of a metropolitan region with more than 2,7 Mio inhabitants in total. The region is economically strong and offers more than 1 million workplaces. This leads to a high mobility demand from citizens and the economy. Every day 800.000 vehicles enter and leave the city, which leads to the typical problems of a big city: traffic congestion, stress, noise und particulate matter or nitrogen oxide.

Stuttgart is working hard on the transport-related challenges in order to increase the life-quality and to avert the effects of the high traffic on the environment. The city has an excellent local public transport system with 55 bus lines and 17 light rail lines with nearly 190 million passengers per year. Furthermore it is well positioned with car sharing offers like Car2go and Flinkster and Bike-sharing providers. A lot of effort is also spent into the bicycle infrastructure expansion, the promotion of clean vehicles and public transport and awareness campaigns to change citizens’ mobility behavior.

Kalamaria

Kalamaria is the second largest municipality of Thessaloniki Urban Area in Greece, with a population of 91,279 as of 2011. The Municipality tries to adopt a SUMP.

Kalamaria’s expectations from SUITS project are :

Improvement of capacity building of its technical staff and usage of innovative methods and tools for improvement in urban transport efficiency and environmental impact
Increase in the know-how using innovation processes in sustainable urban urban mobility
Network utilization of public use areas and social services
Change in the culture of citizens through campaign, using SUITS program testing results and tools

Palanga

Palanga is a seaside resort town in western Lithuania, on the shore of the Baltic Sea with a population of more than 15 000 people (during the summer number of inhabitant including tourist exceeded 120 000 people). The most popular travel mode is a private car (according to the survey 49 % of respondents usually use private car).

The city’s SUMP was approved in early of 2017, and its full implementation is expected by 2030.

Planned SUMP innovations:

Implementation of universal design principles in transport system (including implementation of mobility opportunities in the sandy beach);
Infrastructure modifications to improve and promote bicycle and pedestrian mobility.

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and of the Lazio region. With 2,9 million of residents in 1,285 sqkm, it is also the country’s largest and most populated municipality and the fourth largest city in the Europe Union, by population within city limits. 65 per cent of inhabitants travel by car, with 9 per cent walking, 25 percent taking public transport, 1 per cent riding a bike, with negative impacts on pollution and congestion.

The city administration hence is committed to re balancing the modal share in favour of collective transport also incentivising sustainable modes, (eg. Cycling, sharing, electric traction).

Rome Municipality, with the support of the Mobility Traffic Plan (PGTU) and SUITS contribution, is currently drafting the SUMP.

The first interventions outlined regarding:

enlargement of the cycling network
works of adapting, technological innovation, automation and accessibility regarding metropolitan lines
the metro network strengthening
new tram lines

Turin

The City of Torino, with its 900,000 inhabitants, is strongly committed to become a “smarter city”, fostering a sustainable, intelligent and inclusive urban growth.

The City Council has a strong commitment to sustainable transport, with a target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% before 2020. To support this commitment, the City Council has taken steps to make public transport more competitive, focusing on providing integrated urban transport systems.

SUITS will support the revision of the action plan defined in the SUMP (adopted in 2008) and will provide the chance of increasing knowledge of mobility needs and pattern.

Valencia

The city of Valencia currently has a total of 787,266 inhabitants and it is the third city of Spain, which the metropolitan area is about one million and a half. Valencia extension is 13,465 Ha. Regarding mobility, Valencia has 1,895,000 daily trips, 76.4% of inner trip are sustainable and 72% of metropolitan trip (external) are in private vehicle.

Valencia is working towards sustainable mobility developing strategy and several measures in SUMP, like: promote sustainable mobility, participation, safety, accessibility, decarbonise transport, speed limit reduction, public space and pedestrianisation. The city is improving cycling infrastructure expansion, public transport and promoting awareness campaigns to promote sustainable mobility.

SUITS will enable Valencia to develop innovative capacities for the implementation of the projects proposed through the elaborated SUMP, and it will provide the opportunity of increasing knowledge and capacities in mobility area.

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no 690650.
The sole responsibility for the content of this website lies with the SUITS project and in no way reflects the views of the European Union.