SUMPs Implementation: Designation of Capacity Gaps of Local Authorities in the Delivery of Sustainable Mobility Projects

In a technological, fast-developing world, the quality of life has still not achieved universally satisfactory levels. Lower-income populations tend to experience restricted accessibility to transport services and consequently fewer professional opportunities (OECD 2017) while vehicle-related pollution and transport safety are still challenging issues for transport planners and regulators (World Bank 2017).

During recent years, there has been a great effort to move toward more sustainable cities following the UN Agenda. Goals, planning tools, and practices are being diffused worldwide. In this effort, Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) have arisen as a policy tool to enhance sustainable mobility. Several initiatives for the strategic planning of sustainable urban development exist (Sustainable NI 2016; Plevnik et al. 2019), and useful tools, criteria, and relevant indicators have been proposed for different geographies to assist the application of sustainability plans (Zheng et al. 2013; DSDG–UNHQ 2016; Perra et al. 2017; Alonso et al. 2016; EUROSTAT 2019; Mozos-Blanco et al. 2018; Ali-Toudert et al. 2019). To enhance the implementation of these applications, regulators are also contextualizing the monitoring process (RFSC 2013). Cities, as well, have launched initiatives for sustainability monitoring, such as the initiative of Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI). However, the path from theory to practice is not seamless. The motivation for sustainable plans stems from national or international policies, however the implementation fully relies on local governments and stakeholders (Zoeteman 2013). The provision of technical support, stakeholder engagement, alignment of investments and facilitation of collaborations have been reported as priorities for SUMP implementation (Skoudopoulos et al. 2016). The success of SUMPs is also dependent on the evaluation process employed after the implementation, but loose or lack monitoring is a common practice in many cities (Mozos-Blanco et al. 2018).

The smart city concept is often encountered in SUMPs, and many sustainable mobility measures are often described as smart mobility measures as well. A study in Belgium suggests that, depending on the characteristics of the cities, it is likely that the understanding of “smart” differs among Las, and city clusters may emerge according to the city’s size (population), the degree of urbanization (urban, rural) and the region it belongs to (part of the country) (Desdemoustier et al. 2019). Four clusters on “smart” understanding have been suggested: technological (implementation of a technology); societal (a human, sustainable and institutional positioning); comprehensive (an integration of technology, human-centricity, sustainability and institutional factors); and non-existent (absence of understanding). The relevant application in 113 municipalities in Belgium indicated that the cluster of municipalities without any understanding (non-existent) or with a technical understanding are mostly located in small and rural areas where there is resistance to the application of smart mobility because such projects are considered too complicated for their regions and with low expectations of benefit. The view of project complexity is shared by medium- and large-sized municipalities, but these clusters mostly develop a societal or comprehensive understanding. This study implies that the city size affects internally the capacity of LAs to correspond to novel concepts without analyzing the views of several stakeholders in each city.

While many studies have focused on the assessment of sustainable urban development and the assessment of SUMPs, evidence of the capacity of the relevant stakeholders to successfully implement those plans is scarce. As there are differences between traditional transport plans and SUMPs (ELTISplus 2012), there is the need to analyze the conditions that can lead to the delivery of SUMPs. Early work in the field, focused on the barriers faced by LAs while implementing SUMPs, has indicated that financing is the greatest impediment, followed by modeling techniques, monitoring of the process and the evaluation, while the aspects of strategy option generation and strategy appraisal were reported to be less impact (May 2005). The legal aspects, the existence of national guidance, the number of plans in place, the set of sustainability objectives, the level of public involvement, the finance state, and the political support can serve as indicators for the status of SUMPs at a European level, as well (ELTISplus 2012). A case study for Mexico City revealed that from the perspective of mobility stakeholders, the negotiation success with and among internal transport stakeholders and the cooperation among the political entities in the region are driving forces for the development of sustainable transport systems (Steurer and Bonilla 2016). Public participation through information sharing and activity communication has also proven to be a contributor to collaborative mobility initiatives and a determinant factor for the successful implementation of plans, especially when there is a stakeholder annual agenda (Gil et al. 2011). The importance of collaborations on data sharing and exploitation was highlighted by Tafidis et al. (2017), who, through the assessment of data availability, frequency, and reliability over 80 data types in the city of Thessaloniki, underlined the need for the operation of a unique urban observatory.

Local authorities (LAs) are still dependent on external aspects so that they implement plans toward sustainable mobility. A survey to 328 European cities demonstrated that there is an expressed need for support in the following areas: financing the measures and their development, providing support with guidance and training, defining a legal framework that enhances the integration of land and mobility planning, defining the institutional framework, and organizing the monitoring of the process (Plevnik et al. 2019). Another study with a narrower context (24 closed responses) designated the lack of a governance framework, the lack of consistency in the legal framework, the understanding of the SUMP concept, the lack of awareness at national level, the compatibility of SUMPs with existing plans, and the need for good practice diffusion as major gaps hindering SUMP development at the national level (Durlin et al. 2018).

Environmental regulations and the provision of public funding are both motivating and forcing LAs to develop and deliver SUMPs. However, they are not always capable of successfully planning and implementing them. To assist cities with the implementation of their mobility plans, it is essential to analyze which factors influence their capacity to plan, develop, and implement sustainable mobility measures. The current work is studying more meticulously the issue of the capacity of LAs to implement SUMP and the barriers and the challenges met while applying mobility measures as part of SUMPs. An evaluation process for the capacity of LAs to implement SUMPs is developed in the framework of the SUITS-CIVITAS H2020 project. The aim is to understand the gaps and challenges for cities during the planning or implementation of mobility measures, as well as the requirements of cities and mobility planners in terms of support. It presents an evaluation framework and the results of its application to six European cities. The next section of the paper presents the methodology that was followed based on the knowledge acquired from previous work conducted on the field, workshops, and interviews with mobility stakeholders of the cities. The results are then presented, and they are discussed in the fourth section. The paper terminates with some conclusions concerning the results of the assessment.

Understanding the way in which a LA works requires thorough understanding of its structure, planning, operations, and relationships to other stakeholders. The nature of capacity assessment, in the context of transport planning, concerns organizational and behavioral aspects of the stakeholders involved. The prerequisite for supporting the capacity of cities to implement sustainable mobility measures is a clear understanding of what capacity actually is and how it is reflected in the planning and development of mobility measures. The multifaceted nature of sustainability and the numerous stakeholders involved in this process increase the complexity of capacity assessment. According to OECD, capacity is the ability of people, organizations, and society to manage their affairs successfully. The European Commission (2014) defines capacity building as a process that comprises the ability of LAs to perform their functions and which can be improved by focusing on both the individuals and the entities. At the level of individuals, skills and competences need to be developed inside the public authorities, and at the level of entities, processes, structures, and resources are the focal points to assess. In this study, capacity is defined as a process through which a transport organization or institution responsible for transport planning and management at the urban level is able to develop and implement various transport projects with short- or long-term objectives, with the final aim to enhance integrated transport systems in a sustainable way (Martins et al. 2017). To assess the activities of a LA to build its capacity, the views of organizational, political, legal, and societal players are considered. Transport and mobility departments of LAs, transport authorities and operators, mobility agencies, infrastructure providers and transport users, citizens representatives and funding agencies give feedback on the LAs’ capacity to implement mobility plans. The following methods can be employed for the collection of the data and information that will be analyzed in order to complete the assessment: workshops, focus groups, interviews, and self-assessments. In this study, workshops and interviews with the mobility planning departments or the departments that are involved in mobility planning of nine LAs were conducted, and a self-assessment capacity tool is presented.

Six European medium-sized cities were analyzed in their capacity to implement sustainable mobility plans. In total, twelve local organizations (operators, regulators and all the city LAs) were interviewed. At a city level, all the indicators were assessed individually and per category, thus enabling an easy assessment of the performance on each indicator. When several institutions assess a city’s capacity, comparisons can be made on the perceptions of the stakeholders (example in Appendix 2). All the clusters of indicators can be aggregated in one graph (example in Appendix 3) to illustrate the results of the analysis for a specific city. The highlighted LH cluster area encompasses the indicators that are considered important but were attributed low scores and represent the city’s capacity barriers.

Observation of the city results indicate that there are some indicators that demonstrate a common need for strengthening among the cities. These aspects represent internal processes (monitoring), the working environment (staff needs and self-assessment), cooperation with other organizations and alignment with external aspects, specifically the legal framework (legal and regulatory framework, legal power delegation, and understanding of applied framework). The aggregated results (Appendix 4) demonstrate that there are indicators to improve that are dependent on the LA’s operation which are more controllable than others. These include regular self-assessment, staff’s needs, participatory management, support tools/techniques and personnel, team’s dimension and continuous learning, coordination and cooperation among sectors, staff’s commitment, data analysis, data collection, and early engagement. Others, such as financial autonomy, political commitment, continuity, data availability, and public acceptance, are more difficult to manage and thus achieve a satisfactory level of performance. This is mainly observed due to the impact of the external factors that are linked to the operation of a LA and the interdependencies among all the entities. For example, it is easier to control, during a certain period of time, the internal human resources, their expertise, and the organization of the work to be delivered than to guarantee political continuity and financial inputs, which mainly depend on the priorities each political entity sets during its governance period.

The results of the individual cities are used to assess Las’ capacity, designate capacity enablers and barriers, and derive recommendations for action for the capacity-building activities. Overall, the awareness of the legal framework was very high, especially in the municipality respondents, because it forms the basis of the work on the mobility measures. However, slightly more than 20% of the respondents were not fully aware, which can be explained by the fact that mobility stakeholders also took part in the survey, often not knowing the legal framework in much detail. Results regarding financial autonomy vary: larger cities in economically strong regions are much more independent of federal funding than smaller cities in structurally weak regions. The two indicators, continuity and staff needs, also reveal very different assessments. Looking at the point continuity, in the workshops it became clear that some cities are struggling very much with political instabilities, which makes it hard to develop and follow long-term strategies in the mobility sector. Staff needs also shows that, when it comes to the needs of employees, very different situations exist in municipal administrations, like those in private sector companies.

The study indicates that there is room for improvement in the operations of the LAs through the early alignment with the legal framework, the focus on staff operations, and the increase of cooperation with other organizations. Improvements could be achieved through early participation of LAs in the legal framework formulation and the increase of project management skills of LA’s staff. The results are aligned with previous research conclusions on the areas of interventions (Skoudopoulos et al. 2016; Mozos-Blanco et al. 2018). Overall, the results reflect good performance, which is a sign that the topic of mobility is being taken very seriously, at least in the participating cities. However, as the results are based on a relatively small sample, this cannot be generalized.

This paper deals with the capacity of LAs to develop and implement sustainable mobility plans. A capacity assessment method consisting of a set of indicators is presented and applied to a small sample of European cities in the framework of SUITS project. The presented methodology allows authorities to self-assess their performance and capacity and to identify the sources of the problems they face and that impede their effectiveness in developing and implementing mobility plans. The application of the assessment tool designates the areas in which interventions are needed to enhance the achievement of more successful development and efficient implementation of transportation plans. The application to six cities demonstrates that the priority areas that need interventions so that capacity is enhanced are project management and staff-related and legal aspects. Because LAs are multifaceted entities, further interviews with several departments (e.g., finance, political) can be taken to identify the differences in their perceptions of capacity. Future work can also apply the framework to the systematic development of training tools and the comparison of ex-post assessment of LA capacity.