H2020 CIVITAS SUITS (Sustainable Urban Integrated Transport Systems: Transferable tools for Small to Medium localauthorities) is a four-year research and innovation action (RIA), entering its final 18 months

Woodcock, Andree

Coventry University Pure Portal

H2020 CIVITAS SUITS (Sustain-able Urban Integrated Trans-port Systems: Transferabletools for Small to Medium localauthorities) is a four-year researchand innovation action (RIA), enteringits final 18 months. Its aim is toincrease the capacity of Small-Medium (SM) local authorities (LAs) todevelop and implement sustainable,inclusive, integrated and accessibletransport strategies, policies, tech-nologies, practices, procedures, tools,measures and intelligent transportsystems (ITS) that recognise the end-to-end travel experiences of allusers and freight. It is perceived that SM cities areunlikely to have sufficient resources todevelop, support and finance integratedurban mobility plans without a broadrange of targeted capacity-buildingmeasures. SUITS argues that ratherthan importing or adapting existingsustainable transport measures orbuying in expertise, cities should besupported in building up local capacity(in their governmental institutions,businesses and citizens) to grow, fundand implement bespoke and context-sensitive sustainability strategies,appropriate to their needs. Playing an active role in the CIVITAS2020 family, SUITS contributes towardsthe CIVITAS initiative and adoption ofSUMPs across the European Union (EU),as a Member of the Co-ordinatingGroup of the European Platform onSustainable Urban Mobility Plans(SUMP), especially concerning innova-tive financing and procurement andinclusivity. Although integrating withSUMP vsn 2.0, having a SUMP is not aprerequisite for using SUITS’ outputs.In relation to sustainable transport,SUITS argues that capacity-buildingshould embrace change, at the indiv -idual, organisational and institutionallevels. This includes providing theknowledge and know-how of the latesttransport innovations, mobility datausage, rules, regulations and citizenengagement processes. These directlyimpact how a transport departmentgoes about its business, enablingthem to make better, more informedplans. The following sections outlinethe two main outputs of the project.Crowdsourcing dataAs an RIA project, SUITS has success-fully piloted the use of real-time trafficdata collection through crowdsourcingin urban traffic management toaddress issues of both passenger andfreight mobility as a low-cost means ofgathering, visualising and analysingsuch data. This method is especiallyattractive to SM cities. Trials in Kala-maria and Torino indicate not only thesuitability of the method but also, thesteps which local authorities need totake to guarantee sufficient, reliableand General Data Protection Regula-tion (GDPR)-compliant data collection.All cities are free to use our DataRepository to access traffic datasetsand share their open data with others.SUITS toolset enables the selection andvisualisation of large, crowdsourcedtraffic datasets with the ability to scaleefficiently to handle big data. Citizenprivacy is ensured by data anonymisa-tion or pseudonymisation techniques,tools and application of stronglysecure crypto technologies for datacommunication and storage. The useof real-time data also features inSUITS CBP, discussed below.SUITS Capacity BuildingProgramme (CBP)To understand the needs of the trans-port departments, SUITS has workedextensively with partner cities (AlbaIulia, Transport for West Midlands,Kalamaria, Turin, Rome and Valenciaand follower cities of Dachau,Stuttgart and Palanga) to determinefirst of all, the existing gaps in knowl-edge and secondly what changes needto be made within the organisation forAndree Woodcock, a Professor from Coventry University, tells us all we need to know about afour-year research and innovation action project that aims to develop and implement sustainable,inclusive, integrated and accessible transport strategies, amongst many other areasDeveloping and implementingsustainable, inclusive, integratedand accessible transport strategies522PROFILEit to work more effectively, apply, useand measure the impact of capacity-building measures.SUITS work has confirmed that localauthorities (LASs) face many chal-lenges in developing sustainable urbanplanning measures and deployinginnovative mobility solutions andtechnologies. Despite comprehensiveEU Guidelines for developing andimplementing such projects, LAs maystruggle to perform exhaustive pre-liminary analyses, develop SMARTgoals coupled with long-term visionand impact assessment. Furthermore,substantial drawbacks occur in theimplementation phase of urbanmobility projects, particularly in termsof improving conceptual planning processes and establishing sustainablefinancing schemes. This derives fromthe lack of appropriate expertise andorganisational structures which impedeinnovation and barriers to interde-partmental working needed for smartcity development. Requirements analysis of the SUITScities and reviews of existing guide-lines has led to the development and implementation of six tailorablemodules, specially designed for SMLAs which aim to:Increase the capacity to develop and•implement sustainable, inclusive,integrated and accessible transport;Support development of SUMPs by•transforming them into learningorganisations and;Increase resilience and responsive-•ness of transport departments tonew challenges and changes. Six modules (see figure 1) have beendeveloped, acknowledging gaps inexisting training material and theneeds of SM LAs. These include aFacilitator Guide, appropriate trainingmaterial delivered either as classroomcourses (modules 1-4) or e-learningmodules (5-6). The courses have beenstructured to clarify the value of mea-sures for small-medium cities, analysea successful case, present innovativefinancing and procurement proce-dures tailored to topic requirements,as well as tools and guidelines for the enhancement of measures’ imple-mentation and user engagement. The CBP has been assessed pilotedwith SUITS cities. Overall evaluationhas shown that participants were fullysatisfied with the learning ambienceand more than 50% gave the highestrate regarding the content accuracy,exercises structure, course structureand achievement of workshop objec-tives. During the next 12 months, allmaterial will be released (in Italian,Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Lithuanian,German and Romanian) as the SUITSCapacity Building Manual and Toolbox(freely available to the Open ResearchData Portal and the CIVITAS UrbanMobility Tool Inventory). Specifically,the Toolbox will consist of:A step by step guide for LAs assisting•them in the decision-making processwhen developing SUMPs;An Integrated Decision Support Tool•to assist LAs in setting innovativefinancing, public procurement andproject development processes;Links to resources such as databases•and models that are particularly relevant to transport planning andsustainable mobility planning for Lasand;Relevant examples and case studies. •The SUITS consortium consists of twenty-two partners from elevenEU countries, among them nine cities in seven EU countries. It iscoordinated by the Future Transport and Cities Research Institute,Coventry University, UK.This project has received funding from theEuropean Union’s Horizon 2020 researchand innovation programme under grantagreement no 690650.Andree WoodcockProfessorCoventry UniversityTel: +44(0)7974 984 460A.Woodcock@coventry.ac.ukwww.coventry.ac.ukwww.twitter.com/suits_projectS U I T S523PROFILEFigure 1. Capacity Building Programme Modules  1. Implementation of emergingtransport technologies2. Introduction of innovativetransport schemes3. Implementation of urban transportsafety & security measures for all/ vulnerable users4. Implementation of urban freighttransport measures5. Innovative financing,procurement and businessmodels6. Data collection and analysistools for integrated measures

Developing and implementing sustainable, inclusive, integrated and accessible transport strategies

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Developing and implementing sustainable, inclusive, integrated and accessible transport strategies

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