The 7th meeting of the Partnership for Urban Mobility (PUM) took place in Burgas, Bulgaria. The meeting was kicked off the first day with an official welcome by the Lord Mayor of Burgas, Mr Dimitar Nikolov, and a presentation of the city’s mobility profile and current mobility challenges. Afterwards, the discussion chaired by František Kubeš, PUM Co-coordinator for Czechia and the PUM 7 chairman, focused on how to cooperate with other local authorities in developing a sound regional mobility plan. 

Also on day one of the meeting the partners welcomed their new member Walk21, an international charity that promotes walkability through effective policies, programmes, and planning. Jim Walker, founder and director of Walk21, gave an overview of the organisation, highlighting the need for a balance between infrastructure and soft measures, as well as the importance of public space. He presented certain crossovers to be integrated into specific Actions. 

The Technical Secretariat supporting the Partnership presented the results of the Public Feedback (February to April 2018) followed by a comprehensive analysis of the results by Anke Karmann-Woessner, PUM Co-coordinator for Karlsruhe. The suggestions presented to PUM partners included:

• Adopting a more integrated approach to the specific bottlenecks,
• Focusing on cross-cutting issues,
• Paying attention to good urban governance and to strategic urban planning,
• Strengthening thelink with other thematic Partnerships,
• Conducting a more complete stocktaking of existing initiatives.

The partners then discussed the Action updates. Here are some elements from this debate:

The draft Actions related to Active Mobility are comprised of preparing infrastructure guidelines, making increased funding available for cycling and walking infrastructure, and addressing behaviour change and changes in the public space redistribution. A discussion evolved around the possibility to include additional elements (e.g. minimum standards). Priority will be given to establish linkages between different elements of the Action. 

Concerning the draft Action on Urban Vehicle Access Regulations (UVARs),the PUM will seek and explore possibilities for further cooperationwith the Air Quality Partnership. Promoting the idea of UVARs to citizens will be among the next steps to consider. 

As to the draft Action on New Mobility Services, an investigation of possible finance and funding schemes is planned.To further develop this Action, the partners will take into account the demographic change and consider reduced-mobility travellers’ needs.

Regarding the draft Action on an EU Framework for Fostering Innovation, a pilot project might be used to address the lack of funding for scaling up innovative infrastructures and smart solutions.

Discussing the draft Action on Reinforcing Multi-level-Governance, consensus was reached on undertaking a best practice study of relevant existing projects.

Following the updates, the Action authors proceeded with the roadmap for implementation taking into account the required resources and expertise. On the second day of the meeting, the partners discussed next steps towards finalisation of the Action Plan (read the draft Action Plan here).

The next Partnership meeting will be held in early October 2018 in Nijmegen, Netherlands, and will focus on finalising the Action Plan to be acknowledged by the Directors-General Meeting on Urban Matters (DGUM) in November 2018.

Was this information useful? Please let us know via a brief user survey.