CODATU is a partner of the Interreg Med European project called “Urban transports”. This project aims to animate the “Urban Transport Community in the Mediterranean” and to share the community members’ best practices. This project is part of the European Program Interreg MED and is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Launched in 2016, the Urban Transport Community is one of the eight thematic communities of the Interreg MED program. It was created to gather the different urban transport stakeholders of the Interreg MED program. Nowadays, the Community gathers more than 120 institutions acting on Urban Mobility in the 12 euro-Mediterranean countries (local authorities, universities, users’ representants, civil society organizations, private companies, etc.). These institutions cooperate (or did cooperate) in transnational partnerships in order to promote sustainable urban mobility by improving travel planning and conducting pilot projects.
A second phase of this Community started in November 2019, led by MedCities (Spain), in partnership with Area Science Park (Italy), Civinet CY-EL (Cyprus-Greece), POLIS (Belgium), the municipality of Durres (Albania) and CODATU.
This new phase makes it possible to capitalize on what has been learned by providing local authorities who so desire with a tailor-made accompaniment to conduct pilot projects initially tested by other local authorities which are members of the Community.
Catalog of best practices in sustainable urban mobility
A selection of easily replicable tools was published on the MedUrbanTools platform. These tools were designed, carried out and tested by members of the Community.
These good practices fall under the following areas of intervention:
- Smart Traffic Management (Big Data and ICT)
- Soft Mobility
- Shared Mobility
- Mobility in Tourist Destinations
- Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning approaches
Thematic webinars were organized to present this catalog. They are available for streaming here.
A tailor-made mentoring program
Following a call for proposals, eight cities of the Mediterranean benefit since April 2021 from a tailor-made mentoring program. The selected cities are supported by an expert and a “pioneer” city to conceive their project related to sustainable mobility.
CODATU coordinates more specifically two mentoring programs with the cities of Sfax (Tunisia) and Larissa (Greece), respectively on the topics of Soft Mobility and Smart Traffic Management (Big Data).
These mentorships are ongoing and so far took place: work sessions with local stakeholders and peer learning sessions with the pioneering cities (Misano for Sfax and Rimini and Misano in Larissa’s case). An in-person workshop is planned soon in Sfax with local stakeholders to draft together a municipal strategy for Soft Mobility and identify pilot sites for bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Study visits in the “pioneer” cities are also planned.
The mentorships will be concluded at the beginning of 2022 with the redaction of an adaptation report that will allow the replicating cities to launch the project’s operationalization. Results of these mentoring programs will then be highlighted by the constitution of policy briefs and a policy paper, as well as the organization of workshops and conferences.