European Mobility Week
Local authorities can apply for the 10th European Award for Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning or SUMP Award by the end of October. The competition complements the European Mobility Week Award. This year the series of events will be held from September 16 to 22.
The aim of the European Award for Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning – SUMP Award is to encourage the adoption of sustainable urban mobility plans or SUMPs by local authorities across Europe and to reward outstanding achievements in each year’s thematic priority area. Organizers said the finalists would be announced in February or March and that the award ceremony would be held by the end of April.
Separately, municipalities and cities that participate in the European Mobility Week from September 16 to 22 qualify for the European Mobility Week Award in two categories by size. The two competitions are complementary and are presented alongside the EU Urban Road Safety Award.
The theme of the 10th jubilar SUMP Award is ‘Safe and Healthy with Sustainable Mobility. Applications are open to local authorities that have legal competence in developing and implementing a sustainable urban mobility plan on their territory but they are also eligible if they haven’t yet completed the process.
Planning for safer and healthier cities
The deadline is October 31. The European Commission introduced the SUMP Award in 2012. SUMPs are designed to satisfy the mobility needs of people and businesses in cities and their surroundings for a better quality of life.
“Planning for safer and healthier cities, where measures are interlinked to achieve the objectives of road safety, physical, and mental health are and will be crucial in the coming years. Another important challenge is to improve public transport services, while restoring citizens’ confidence in the service – offering a safe and sustainable alternative to move around,” the announcement adds.
The applicants should show how they integrated new mobility services like schemes for sharing bicycles and electric scooters. The criteria include road safety targets linked with vision zero for the elimination of net greenhouse gas emissions.
Southeastern Europe’s significance on sustainable urban mobility map
The European Mobility Week Award is given to towns and cities for the promotion of sustainable urban mobility during the events they organize over the seven days. This year more than 1,360 municipal units in 33 countries announced so far that they would participate.
In the region followed by Balkan Green Energy News, Turkey has the biggest number of towns and cities that will organize European Mobility Week events – 97. Next are Slovenia, 84, and Greece, with 43 participants for now. No municipal authorities from Croatia and Cyprus applied yet while the remaining countries are currently represented by one to eight applicants each.
The City of Kruševac in Serbia won the award for 2019 for the category of more than 100,000 inhabitants. Igoumenitsa in Greece was the best smaller municipality in the 2017 competition.
Serbia’s capital Belgrade was among the finalists for the SUMP Award 2020. Turda in Romania was the 6th winner while Slovenia’s Ljutomer reached the finals when the competition was launched.
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