“Urgent, urgent, urgent,” was the welcome message delivered by Marijke De Roeck, SUMPs coordinator from the ICLEI Member Antwerp (Belgium), at an online edition of ICLEI Europe's flagship ‘Breakfast at Sustainability’s’ event series.

In this statement, De Roeck refers to the immediate need to decarbonise the mobility sector across Europe (which should be decarbonised within the next 20-30 years), while ensuring high quality of life for all. Turning this goal into reality requires not only that cities develop Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs), but alos that they successfully implement them.

At last week's SUMP-focused Breakfast at Sustainability's event, De Roeck explained: “A plan gets created and then usually sits on a shelf. The key question is how to start the 'doing' - the time is now!"

In response, Matthew Baldwin, Deputy Director-General for Mobility and Transport at the European Comission, re-emphasised this urgency from the European perspective, reminding participants that there is a need to reduce emissions in transport by 90 percent in order to reach European climate goals. He highlighted the role of cities in this challenge and the importance of exchange with citizens and other cities.

The good news is that great solutions – that can chart paths for successful implementation – already exist. Speakers from the SUMP-PLUS project, in which ICLEI Europe is a partner, shared some of the processes and tools that the project is creating to help bridge the implementation gap, and to enable more cities to play a role in decarbonising the mobility sectors. SUMP-PLUS topics covered: background information necessary to changing mobility policy perspectives; governance and engagement tools; multi-sector collaboration and capacity building in municipalities for robust implementation strategies; and the need to integrate shorter-term implementation strategies within longer-term transitions pathways.

These insights were complemented with examples from two cities: Platanias (Greece) and Greater Manchester (UK). These vastly different contexts – a small island city with seasonal tourism, and a major city keen to use its SUMP to decarbonise its health and transport sectors, respectively – provided detailed insights into context-dependent mobility challenges and solutions.

To learn more about the presenters, revisit the event programme here. For more information on how the SUMP-PLUS project is address SUMP implementation gaps, visit the project website here, and sign-up for the SUMP-PLUS newsletter here.