Seeing mobility in action
Cities increasingly recognise that sustainable mobility cannot be treated as a stand-alone activity as it is integral to other Sustainable Urban Developement (SUD) strategies. The EUI C2C Exchanges address this challenge not only providing guidance on what EU cities should do, but further allowing cities to see first-hand how to do it. Through mutual visits and in-depth discussions, cities can compare approaches, understand what works in practice, and select the solution best suited to their context. While urban areas may not always know how to design effective solutions on their own, the C2C Exchanges provide concrete examples, often with a focus on active travel, particularly walking and cycling, demonstrating how integrated mobility strategies can be successfully implemented.
Sustainable mobility and citizen engagement
Citizen engagement emerges as a common theme across all sustainable mobility projects. Engaging citizens is not only central to effective SUD strategy implementation, but is also a core pillar of the New European Bauhaus approach, which proposes that communities must co-create the solutions that might benefit or impact them. This engagement becomes even more critical in cities with a deeply rooted car culture, where measures that increase facilities for cyclists and pedestrians -often at the expense of the car space- can trigger strong resistance. By bringing citizens into the conversation early, cities can build understanding, trust, and support for change.
Piatra Neamț (RO) offers a clear example of how this can work in practice. Seeking to decarbonise mobility and strengthen its SUD strategy, the city turned to Szeged (HU) as a “peer” for its transformational approach to smart mobility. Through their C2C Exchange, Piatra Neamț learned that implementing a series of smaller, connected initiatives –such as displaying real-time waiting times for pedestrians and buses or creating mini-roundabouts to reduce congestion– can be more widely accepted than a single large intervention. Coupled with citizen communication before, during and after the implementation though targeted awareness campaigns, participatory approaches, and a strong emphasis on trust-building, these actions paved the way for a redesigned, pedestrian-friendly city centre. The exchange allowed Piatra Neamț’s team to experience Szeged’s practices first-hand, discuss them with senior officials and bring back insights to adapt within their own local context.
Overcoming car culture
Shifting away from a “car culture” in a way that is owned and supported by citizens has become a common challenge across sustainable mobility projects. Turku (FI) and Rabat (MT), are two examples where this transition has been particularly pressing. Both cities had strong, historical adoption of car culture and their elected politicians were not always convinced of the benefits of sustainable alternatives.
In Turku’s case, a C2C Exchange with Groningen (NL) provided deep insights on developing and implementing multi-modal traffic management frameworks – particularly its integration of cycling with public transport. Groningen’s system adapts traffic lights and flows in real time and prioritises pedestrians and cyclists over other road users.
Turku learned how to embed public transport as a default option for example, starting a bus service for a new out-of-town housing estate before it was occupied, coordinating municipal bodies, construction firms, private operators, and technology providers. Discussions revealed how Groningen’s informal, cross-departmental working culture and direct communication between politicians and staff helps accelerate sustainable mobility policies. In contrast, Turku’s committee-based approach takes a more traditional route, which naturally allows for a careful, considered and slower pace of decision-making. Thus, beyond acquiring technical knowledge on multi-modal traffic management, Turku gained a unique and deep insight into Groningen’s policy-making approach, while discussions also revealed how building informal links between officials and politicians could help to “win-over” sceptical decision-makers when developing new mobility strategies.
For Rabat the exchange focused on an integrated mobility wallet, developed in Guimarães (PT). Seeing it in practice allowed Rabat to adapt and implement it locally. The experience was mutually beneficial, as Guimarães gained valuable feedback on the challenges faced by another city and used it to significantly upgrade its own wallet design.
Similarly, Thessaloniki (GR) faced a related challenge: traffic congestion and uncertainty about how to address this aspect of sustainable mobility within an integrated SUD strategy. Their participation on the Peer Review with Jelgava (LV), Beja (PT) and Maia (PT), enabled them to explore how others tackled similar issues and to identify solutions, such as Bologna’s (IT) approach. Bologna created 3,000 km of walking and cycling routes which led to measurable economic and commercial development.
Linking sustainable mobility to tourism
Across Europe, many cities are recognising that sustainable mobility and tourism go hand-in-hand. Integrating mobility strategies with visitor attraction policies create an environment that is more welcoming for tourists, benefit the local economy and strengthens the city’s physical infrastructure. Sustainable mobility is not a single issue activity – it has to be integrated within other SUD strategies to have lasting impact.
This was precisely the challenge for Alessandria (IT). The city wished to develop sustainable mobility infrastructure, link it with tourism, actively engage citizens throughout the process, and measure the impact on completion. To achieve this, they identified Dún Laoghaire (IRL) as a leading “peer” city given their experience of developing tourist-focused sustainable mobility infrastructure that also benefited the local community through the URBACT Tourism-Friendly Cities network.
Through their C2C Exchange, Alessandria saw first-hand how Dún Laoghaire designed initiatives that integrated sustainable mobility, citizen engagement and delivered tourism impact. They learned of Dún Laoghaire’s novel civic consultation and active citizen engagement processes, exploring how these could be adapted to their own context, and how to meaningfully involve the national Tourism Agency to create shared ownership of outcomes. Most valuable of all, Alessandria gained a practical understanding of how Dún Laoghaire successfully embedded sustainable mobility into its urban planning and tourism strategies, and how robust monitoring and evaluation procedures could demonstrate the impact of these actions over time.
Lessons learned – turning ideas into action
EUI’s capacity building activities consistently deliver rapid, tailored, and practical solutions for European cities. Participants gain hands-on experience, see urban practices in action, and strengthen the design and implementation of integrated Sustainable Urban Development strategies.
Key lessons include:
- Putting people first and designing road use policy around them and their active travel modes.
- Start small, trying pilots or small-scale initiatives that show citizens tangible improvements quickly
- Integrate mobility with broader strategies – sustainable mobility is relevant for tourism, urban development, citizens health
- Communicate effectively – use existing channels to citizens to explain what you are doing
- Expect some resistance from “car groups,” but try to mobilise wider citizen engagement and support to build positive momentum
- Address mobility culture – citizens use cars because it is a habit and more “comfortable” than active travel. Therefore encourage them to switch.
- Be proactive and brave – sometimes it is necessary to suffer an economic cost for a time to allow citizens to switch to public transport options
- Recognise that politicians reflect the population – Build informal links to them and encourage them to be part of the sustainable mobility policy development process.
- Be patient, as sometimes, sustainability measures take time to achieve their objectives.
Sustainable mobility has emerged as a top priority for cities across both capacity building routes: EUI City to City Exchanges (C2C) and Peer Reviews. Cities recognise that mobility is more than just transport – it intersects with public health, climate action, social inclusion, tourism, and urban planning. Yet, turning ideas into practical strategies is not always straightforward. Cities can transform their approach to mobility in the long term by connecting with the most relevant network of European peers, sharing experiences, and exchanging solutions to tackle challenges together, rather than working in isolation. This is not a new idea, but it has once again been proven to be effective and successful.
