The story of Rome's Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan
The city of Rome (Italy) started implementing its Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan in autumn 2018. The plan is designed to fulfil the mobility needs of residents and businesses in the Italian capital and its surroundings.
Developing and implementing a SUMP means utilising a people-oriented planning process that places accessibility and quality of life at its heart, alongside economic wellbeing, social equity, public health, and environmental sustainability.
A city partner in CIVITAS SUITS, Rome's participation in the project has helped ensure that its own SUMP is centred on these principles and can move away from a car-dominated planning approach. This will involve:
- Promoting multimodality and minimising private car use by individuals;
- Improving road and public transport safety;
- Boosting public transport capacity;
- Increasing shared mobility services, for example car, bike, and van sharing;
- Engaging in more mobility management activities.
Currently, 80 kmof new bike lanes are being built, whilst 69 bikeparking stations were recently installed. Built mainly next to the city's metropolitan transport hubs, these enable travellers to transfer between two wheels and public transport easily and facilitate multimodality.
Future two-wheel milestones are reaching a five per cent modal share for cycling, which is estimated to happen by 2022, and the completion of a 45km-long circular cycle path named “Grab” that extends out from the city centre to the edge of the city.
To ensure cyclists' and other vulnerable road users' safety, the SUMP foresees the introduction of the 30 km/h speed limit in several areas. Alongside these traffic calming and further cycling safety initiatives, a process is underway to identify new pedestrian routes and public spaces, which over time should form new car-free areas. Altogether over 100 measures are planned in this area.
Whilst Rome's sustainable mobility empire was not built in a day, the SUMP marks a key point in the city's transition to cleaner, better urban transport.
Read more on Rome's SUMP here (in Italian) and CIVITAS SUITS here.
Authors: Francesco Iacorossi and Marco Surace
