The city of Funchal, a Match-Up partner, have won the highly prestigious “CIVITAS Legacy” award 2020 which rewards a city that has translated its commitment to the CIVITAS network and sustainable mobility into high-impact, innovative measures. Funchal, a DESTINATIONS partner, was the first Municipality in Madeira to develop a SUMP that outlines the mobility strategy at a long-term period. This important policy tool encompasses mobility with urban planning through the implementation of several intervention axis that ranges from cycling, traffic calming measures, parking management, freight logistics, pedestrian accessibilities, electric mobility, monitoring and evaluation of actions, public transport and use of innovative technologies. Funchal has also been a testing bed for the implementation of several innovative measures, such as automatic traffic counters and environmental stations. These devices are relevant since they are able to collect and analyse data to further understand the mobility patterns in Funchal as well as to support decision-making process and evaluate the impact of certain actions. During the COVID-19 confinement period, for instance, these devices were useful to monitor traffic. Several other policy tools were developed under DESTINATIONS umbrella such as the logistic plan and traffic light renewal strategy that will tackle the challenges for freight agents and increase the accessibility and mobility conditions for soft modes. The Municipality has been actively pursuing several actions. Besides DESTINATIONS (2016-2020) that allowed the Municipality to implement several measures related to accessibility, innovation, public transport and planning tools, Funchal also participates at MATCH-UP (2018-2022), an European project aimed at improving multimodality through the transferability of good practices while fostering a closer cooperation among stakeholders. In a short span of years, the Municipality of Funchal has already left a promising legacy (2nd edition of SUMP guidelines, Interreg Europe good practices database) when it comes to a smooth articulation between urban planning and sustainable mobility, implementation of technologically innovative actions, development of policy instruments for a long-term period, monitoring and evaluation, active participation in several European projects and pursue of European funding to achieve the goals envisioned by the SUMP. The experience acquired has set Funchal as a good example in terms of mobility strategy.
Click here to see the video produced by the EC highlighting some of the actions implemented:
