Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMs) and coordination with spatial and urban planning: European and Greek reality

Abstract

Ensuring sustainable mobility in urban areas has been a key to European policy over the last 30 years with the aim to achieve sustainable development of cities and improve the citizens’ quality of life. In this context, European policies propose Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP), as strategic plans supporting sustainable mobility within urban areas, as well as a better connection between cities and broader functional areas. Many European countries have already implemented SUMP in their cities since traffic planning is included in their spatial and urban planning frameworks as an obligation, while in Greece there is a lack of coordination between spatial and traffic planning. This paper analyses the European framework as well as the main objectives and elaboration process of a SUMP especially their coordination with spatial and traffic planning in France. It also explores the Greek institutional framework in spatial and urban planning as well as the recent Law (4599/19, art. 22) introducing SUMP in this framework and highlights the lack of the strategic traffic planning, as well as its coordination with spatial and urban planning.