The REFORM which started in January 2017, will support the introduction of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) in local authorities of four European regions. SUMPs have proven their value as an efficient planning instrument to shift mobility towards low carbon solutions.
This project will increase the number of local authorities implementing a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) in four European regions: Central Macedonia (Greece), Emilia-Romagna (Italy), Greater Manchester (UK) and Parkstad Limburg (NL). This translates into a specific target for the project to count 60% of local authorities across the four regions to have completed the process for a SUMP adoption.
In order to ease the transition towards low-carbon alternatives for mobility on their territory, the partners will develop guidance materials and organise a series of dedicated events to help their municipalities in the preparation of their SUMP. One of the distinctive aspects of REFORM lies in the central role given to the regions to encourage the adoption of SUMPs by local authorities, including small towns and medium-sized cities. This will be achieved in particular through the improvement of the Regional Operational Programs which will support, fund and diffuse the concept of SUMP as the main planning instrument for shifting mobility towards a low carbon intensive mobility pattern.
Another distinctive aspects of the project is that REFORM will focus on the use of new technologies (ICT) to boost the deployment of SUMPs.
To achieve their objectives, the four regions will be supported by three European partners: the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (Greece) which will coordinate the REFORM project, the network of European cities and regions Polis (Belgium) and the Institute for Transport and Logistics Foundation (Italy).
A first technical visit together with a thematic workshop and a policy roundtable will take place in Thessaloniki (Greece) on 1st and 2nd March 2017, in conjunction with the first consortium meeting where all REFORM partners will meet.
N.B Information can be found in Italian, Greek and Dutch in the regional press releases.
