The Urban Transport Community (UTC), one of the communities in the EU Interreg MED Programme, currently represents the following modular projects: CAMPsUmp, LOCATIONS, MOBILITAS, MOTIVATE, SUMPORT and REMEDIO. All listed projects work towards sustainable mobility solutions that are tailor made to meet challenges in the respective areas and are based on sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs).

GO SUMP is a horizontal project that aims to support the Community as the isolated work of earlier projects has reduced their impact outside their specific territory, hampering the transfer and replication of results at transnational level. It contributes to a unique identity on SUMPs in the Med cities, enhancing their peculiarities as a key to implement low carbon transport & mobility measures.

Using a specialized partnership of Malaga Council, REC Slovenia, EUROCITIES, MEDCITIES, CODATU and UNIMED as the backbone of the working structure, GO SUMP works to solve this gap by guiding and supporting modular projects as a community, to improve the visibility, capitalization and mainstreaming of their results through joint strategies based on synergies and networking.

Currently, MedCities participates and supports the GO-SUMP consortium within the on-going definition, synthesis and methodology of the Med Urban Transport Community, in order to find a functional protocol to transfer and to involve the MedCities Network within the project progresses and solutions, specially the south mediterranean cities which have a high potential to design and implement SUMP from a ‘learn lessons’ criteria.

GO SUMP has recently become a permanent member of the SUMP platform coordinating group, a platform bringing together representatives from relevant ongoing EU supported actions tackling sustainable urban mobility plans.

The platform aims to exchange information and lessons learnt; identify and exploit synergies; agree on common views to inform the further development of the SUMP concept and tools; and assist in the co-ordination of outward presentation of the various initiatives. The group meets twice per year at the Directorate General for Transport of the European Commission in Brussels.

On 8-9 June, GO SUMP participated for the first time in the coordinating group meeting on behalf of the whole Med Urban Transport Community. Besides presenting the community and explaining the Interreg Med architecture to the group, important synergies were detected and will be further explored, for instance with CIVITAS projects PORTIS and DESTINATIONS focusing on sustainable urban mobility plans in port cities and touristic regions, as well as with the Interreg Europe REFORM project, which supports the implementation and deployment of SUMPs, through regional and interregional learning exchanges.

The SUMP platform co-ordinating group will also be an opportunity for discussing and providing inputs to the annual SUMP conference, which will take place next year 2018 from 13-15 May (TBC) in Nicosia (Cyprus).

MedCities network invites you to subscribe to the GO-SUMP Project’s Newsletter by compiling this form (http://www.uni-med.net/en/register-to-the-newsletter-med-urban-transports-community/ ).

GO SUMP project has developed a video introducing the Med Urban Transports Community, that you can watch it here (https://youtu.be/8sg-HUYEAUM ).

Source: Eurocities (http://www.eurocities.eu/eurocities/news/Med-Urban-Transport-Community-presented-at-the-SUMP-platform-co-ordinating-group-WSPO-ANQJXN ).

More info: UNIMED (http://www.uni-med.net/en//?s=go+sump ).