Strategic Planning

​Why Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans Struggle to Deliver

Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are big on ambition and small on delivery. This report looks into what is going wrong.

Key Takeaways

• Many SUMPs still plan within municipal borders rather than the full functional urban area.
• Most cities now quantify CO₂ targets, but only a minority quantify the expected impacts of their measures; many therefore have little evidence whether planned interventions can actually meet their own targets.
• Political constraints are a major challenge, such as lack of will, election cycles and resistance to car restrictions.
• Other barriers include public acceptance, fragmented administrative responsibilities and limited staff capacities.
• Public participation is widely recognised as crucial but is not consistently applied across all SUMP phases.
• In implementation, “pull” measures to improve environmentally friendly modes are much more likely to be realised than “push” measures that restrict private vehicle usage, leading to a pronounced implementation gap.
• Monitoring is uneven; some cities even react to underperformance by softening targets rather than adjusting policies.
• To address these deficits, the paper proposes a vision-led transport planning approach.
• This requires putting goals at the centre of the process and shifting planning from forecasting to backcasting.
• It includes political agreement on a common vision, goals, targets and SMART indicators; designing measures by quantifying their impacts (ideally via multimodal transport models); and systematic monitoring.
• The paper stresses the role of national and regional governments. They should provide funding incentives linked to SUMPs.

Comment

This report touches on one of the biggest challenges in transport today - the gap between strategy and implementation.

Whilst I agree with a vision-led planning approach, I remain unconvinced it can inherently deliver the political consensus needed to enact the 'push' measures required, especially if the focus is on sustainability (see here for further thoughts on this).

What Next?

How will you overcome the political barriers to "Push" measures?

Freight Rail

Why Europe’s Rail Freight Is Losing Ground

Europe is seeking to grow its rail freight sector by 50% by 2030 and double it by 2050. This economic study makes recommendations to achieve these targets.

Key Takeaways

• Targets and trends are moving in opposite directions. Rail’s share of inland freight fell from 18.8% (2014) to 16.6% (2024).
• Three Baltic states lost about 27 billion tonne‑km of Russia‑linked transit, which is more than the whole net decline. Rail also lost share in places where it grew, because road grew faster.
• Reliability, not price, is the core problem. Customers mainly leave because rail too often fails to deliver when promised. The study groups the causes into five clusters: infrastructure works, capacity allocation, price, terminals and last mile, and technology and workforce.
• Uncoordinated works and closures are the costliest issue. Intensive renewal works run to 2030, while diversion routes and notice of restrictions are poor.
• Capacity allocation turns scarce paths into unreliable service. About a third of paths ordered for the annual timetable are never run. Only an estimated 20–25% of capacity requests survive unchanged to the train that actually runs.
• Track access charges are roughly a fifth of a freight train’s production cost and often change unpredictably from year to year. Rail is still reported to be 10–20% dearer than road door to door.
• Terminals also hold rail back: its share of container hinterland traffic is at or below 10% in several major ports, against a 30% goal.
• No new horizontal EU law is needed. The gap is implementation. The study’s legislative ask: extend the permitting Directive to cover the diversion and feeder routes that make the network resilient.
• Key asks:
  • accelerated permitting (five Member States are already under infringement for not applying it)
  • implementing the Capacity Regulation (coordinated planning of works with guaranteed diversion capacity)
  • delivering the TEN‑T parameters (the physical standards that the EU’s core rail network must meet), where small fixes like passing loops and gauge clearances could free 10–15% more capacity.
• Shippers say they would shift double‑digit shares of their road freight if reliability improved.

Comment

Whilst I do not disagree with anything in the report, I think it makes the same mistake that almost all reports on growing freight rail make: they largely ignore the subsidies and evolution of the road freight sector.

As I wrote here, autonomous trucks could make road freight significantly more efficient and competitive. What is required is a level playing field with road freight subsidies removed via road user charges.

This would increase demand for rail freight and significantly increase returns on investment from upgrading rail.

What Next?

Do you have a holistic freight strategy covering both road and rail, including consideration of road subsidies?

Governance

Licence to Build: Why Mayors Need More Than Permission

Jurisdictional governance (who makes decisions, where funding comes from, etc.) is a major challenge in transport. This report from the Centre for Cities in the UK looks at what needs to be devolved in England to deliver better transport.

Key Takeaways

• Building and maintaining transport infrastructure in England is expensive, slow to deliver and has struggled to respond to the growth of cities.
• Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs) are the level of Government large enough to align schemes to urban economies, while local enough to understand where investment is needed.
• Mayors face an interlocking set of barriers to delivering better transport infrastructure in their areas:
  • Powers are not at the right geography: mayors depend on central government for approval of new trams, have little influence over commuter rail investment, and have limited power to upgrade road networks for the benefit of the local economy.
  • Planning is long, complex and uncertain: evidence is often reproduced project by project, cases must be repeatedly justified, and local delivery means navigating a complex web of process and institutions.
  • Finance remains dependent on central grants: limited retention of locally raised revenues creates uncertainty and disrupts pipelines, makes raising extra funds through borrowing harder, and means mayors are disconnected from any growth their transport schemes generate.
  • Capacity is constrained: these all contribute to MSAs not being able to build capability at the local level.

Recommendations:

• Powers should be held at a level to match the geography of a project’s economic impact. MSAs should be able to approve local mass transit schemes.
• MSAs should be at the heart of a streamlined transport planning process.
• MSAs need fiscal devolution to finance transport projects. Plans for local tax retention should include shares of income and corporation tax, including the ability to retain some growth of these revenue streams.
• Central government should actively strengthen MSA capacity to deliver local transport. Devolving powers, planning and finance will help, but national institutions should also aim to build capacity in MSAs rather than substitute it.

Comment

I agree with everything in the report. England is far too centralised to respond to local transport needs, with dire consequences for cities outside of London.

The biggest challenge will be devolving the financial clout. However, if this is not overcome, any devolution will disappoint and fail to deliver.

What Next?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of your jurisdictional governance model?

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what else I came across this week:

• ​Modelling the effects of travel time use on mode choice and the value of travel time savings - Research looking at the value of travel depending on the mode with implications for driverless vehicles.
• ​The State of E-Mobility in Queensland - Research looking at the 1 million e-mobility devices in Queensland.
• ​How A.I. Can Benefit Transport - A Freewheeling blog discussing how AI might benefit transport.

Podcast

Podcast - Bus Prioritisation

In the latest Transport Leaders podcast, we discuss all things bus prioritisation - what are the options, what are the benefits and why is it often so difficult to achieve.

👀 Watch it here.

👂Listen to it here.

Tool

Transport Tech Proof of Concepts

The Transit Tech Lab in New York City provides an accelerated pathway for early to growth-stage companies to solve public transportation challenges and demonstrate proof of concept.

The 2026 results are available here.

Jobs

Jobs for Transport Leaders

​Here is a link with jobs around the world, specifically designed for transport leader readers. Use the filter to find jobs that match what you are looking for.