This year, ICLEI Member Dresden (Germany), became the first European city – alongside Greater Manchester (United Kingdom) – to be a two-time finalist for the European Commission’s SUMP Award.

The SUMP award, which stands for Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, recognises local and regional authorities for excellence in sustainable urban mobility planning. Every year, the Award focuses on a specific topic. The 7th SUMP Award (2019) focused on multimodality; this theme was declared by the European Commission - DG MOVE.

Dresden was a finalist for the SUMP award both in 2014 and 2019. ICLEI Member Basel (Switzerland) was also a finalist this year.

Earlier this year, Dresden's traffic planner and area manager participated in an interview with a local newspaper that shed further light on what can be learned from their successes.

The city has focused its mobility advancements around the concept of “multi-mobility,” developing options beyond car ownership, and enabling individuals to navigate the city, for example, by bicycle, public transit, through car sharing, or as pedestrians.

Since first developing its mobility plan, the city has been consistently working with partner organisations to show citizens the benefits of lessening private car use on one’s health and city. Furthermore, they have demonstrated that these positive outcomes can come without sacrificing mobility.

After becoming a finalist for the SUMP Award in 2014, Dresden further committed to working with partners and citizens to implement their plans, including launching intermodal mobility points. The first such point was opened as part of EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK 2018.

Dresden is continuing to develop their mobility solutions still today. Now they are focusing their efforts on integrating digital strategies – such as multi-mobile information systems, integrated booking portals, and more – into a Dresden mobility app. The city continues to assert that successful mobility planning and implementation “is only possible in a partnership structure.”

Multi-mobile solutions are seen as a necessity for the growing city. As Dresden is becoming denser, the need for mobility is increasing, while available space for infrastructure is getting scarcer. This is a situation faced by many cities in Europe and worldwide.

In this context, Dresden traffic planner and area manager Frank Fiedler explains, “Only multi-mobile solutions in conjunction with better public transport and the promotion of space-saving forms of mobility can be forward-looking” (translated from original German, pg. 7).

To read more from Mr. Fiedler on the SUMP Award, click here (page 7).

You can register your EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK 2019 action here today.