How do German cities translate global sustainability visions into local mobility planning? A quantitative analysis of planners' perspectives and priorities

Authors

Jonas Krombach
Juan Nicolas Gonzalez
Rico Wittwer
Stefan Hubrich
Florian Baumgart
Regine Gerike

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2024

Subject Area

place - europe, place - urban, policy - sustainable, policy - congestion, policy - environment, planning - surveys

Keywords

Urban mobility, Indicators, Mobility planning, Sustainable development, Municipal survey

Abstract

Sustainable development has been the guiding political principle worldwide since the adoption of the UN SDGs in 2015. Transport is of highest relevance for meeting this ambition; it enables people to move to destinations to meet their needs, and it causes substantial negative effects in the social, economic, and environmental dimensions. Cities are of highest relevance for transport because of their prevalence, and because challenges and opportunities are particularly pronounced in cities, but few attempts have been made to evaluate how cities translate the higher-level sustainability ambitions to their local contexts. Based on a survey of 402 municipalities in Germany, this study investigates local stakeholders' priorities in terms of sustainable urban mobility (SUM). Expert planners in local administrations assign higher priority to all SUM aspects than this is the case in the official local strategic planning objectives, such as those formulated in Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs), with congestion being the only exception. Accessibility and further domain-specific aspects consistently get higher priority than the environmental effects of transport. Local stakeholders consistently commit first and foremost to the function of transport systems and give the minimization of negative effects only secondary priority. Priorities assigned to the SUM aspects are higher in larger cities than in smaller cities, particularly for the expert planners' assessments. Further studies with similar designs in other parts of the world would help to better understand the transferability of the mechanisms identified in this study and support higher-level efforts to achieve sustainability goals.

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.

Comments

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0967070X

Recommended Citation

Krombach, J., Gonzalez, J. N., Wittwer, R., Hubrich, S., Baumgart, F., & Gerike, R. (2024). How do German cities translate global sustainability visions into local mobility planning? A quantitative analysis of planners' perspectives and priorities. Transport Policy, 154, 96-106.