Aims
-
Identify a wide variety of measure options that would contribute to your vision, objectives and targets. Learn from experienced cities and practitioners to consider all relevant options.
-
Select the most promising measures for your local context.
-
Ensure efficient use of available resources and avoid selection of financially unrealistic measures.
-
Conduct a transparent process that provides convincing evidence for the effectiveness and feasibility of selected measures.
What is a ‘Measure’?
A measure is a broad type of action that is implemented to contribute to the achievement of one or more policy
objectives in a SUMP or to overcome one or more identified problems. Examples range from land use, infrastructure, regulation, management and service measures to behavioural, information provision
and pricing measures.
Tasks
-
Produce a systematic overview of measures that are already planned or implemented, based on sectoral mobility plans (e.g. on walking, cycling, public transport, road transport, parking, freight) as well as plans from other relevant policy areas (e.g. land use, energy, environment
, economic development, social inclusion
, health and safety)
-
Create a long list of new potential measures that connect to your objectives and vision. Consider new and innovative ideas. Also, include measures that would be implemented by the private sector. Use databases of measures and lists of measure types to identify measure gaps and to be inspired (see Tool
section below).
-
Involve stakeholders in drawing up a long list of measures.
-
Be sure to include a mixture of investment, operational and organisational measures for all relevant transport modes in the long list. It also aims for a mix of measures with effects in the short, middle and long term.
-
Learn from others’ experiences. Identify measures that have already been successfully implemented elsewhere and get in touch with their planners. This avoids ‘re-inventing the wheel’ and making costly mistakes that others may already have learnt from.
Databases of urban mobility measures
There is a wide range of possible measures. This means that identifying the most suitable measures for your local context will require some desk work and talking to members of the project team as well as stakeholders.
You may want to consult online databases and documents that provide an overview of possible measures that may match your objectives:
-
SUMPs-UP Manuals on the integration
of measures and measure packages in a SUMP (three versions for beginner, intermediate and advanced cities), including a long list of over 100 measures for 25 categories: http://sumps-up.eu/publications-and-reports/
-
CH4LLENGE Measure selection manual - Selecting the most effective packages of measures for Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans: www.eltis.org/resources/tools/sump-measure-selection-kit
-
EPOMM website for details on mobility management, e.g. the MaxExplorer helping you to identify the most suitable ‘soft measures’: www.epomm.eu/index.php?id=2745
-
Vital Nodes Toolbox with Appraisal
framework, Mapping and spatial design, Good Practices and Fingerprint: https://vitalnodes.eu/tools/
-
Complementary SUMP guidance, Annex D: The different guides include a range of recommended measures for specific topics or contexts.
-
On the European level, the two most encompassing resources for implementations of urban mobility measures (and packages of measures) in cities throughout Europe are the case study sections of Eltis (www.eltis.org), i.e. the European Commission’s urban mobility portal, as well as the EC’s website of the CiViTAS Initiative for cleaner and better transport in cities (www.civitas.eu).
Figure 26: Examples of measure areas to address different overall challenges common in urban mobility planning. A challenge can be addressed with a wide range of different measures. The different measure areas displayed in the pie-charts can be used as a control to see if a city uses all relevant areas to address a certain challenge (Sundberg, R., 2018. SUMPs-Up Manual on the integration of measures and measure packages - Step up, p. 9)

Figure 27: Example of a structure to get an overview of the coverage of different types of SUMP measures and the balance of internal and external measures (Sundberg, R., 2018. SUMPs-Up Manual on the integration of measures and measure packages - Step up, p. 13.)

Online tools supporting measure identification and appraisal
Urban Transport Roadmaps
The Urban Transport Roadmaps tool allows users to explore and identify appropriate sustainable transport policy measures, as well as to quantify the transport, environmental and economic impacts of these measures: www.urban-transport-roadmaps.eu
KonSULT Measure Option Generator
This online tool allows users to quickly identify those policy measures that fit their situation. Users specify their objectives or problems and the option generator provides a ranked list of 64 measures, with links to detailed measure descriptions: www.konsult.leeds.ac.uk
Assessment of measures (option appraisal)
-
Conduct an appraisal of all measures on your long list to identify the most suitable and effective ones for your SUMP.
-
Consider the likely impact of measures on the performance of the transport system (by changing the demand of travel, by changing the supply of transport facilities, or by changing the cost of provision and operation of the transport system).
-
Assess for each measure the likely performance against each of the city’s objectives (effectiveness), the likelihood of being approved (acceptability), and implications for the city’s budget (value for money). Consider different assessment methods and decide which one to use. The choice depends on your experience and available resources and may include both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
-
A relatively quick approach used by many cities is expert ratings of multiple criteria (simplified multi-criteria analysis), for example in a series of workshops. To follow this approach, a group of qualified experts should be gathered (e.g. the SUMP ‘steering group’ or ‘core team’). After presenting a measure, each expert rates individually, scores are discussed as a group, experts can amend their ratings but do not have to agree on a common score, and finally the averages are calculated to compare and prioritise measures (see Tool section below for an example of how to organise such a rating method
). For a more qualified average, it can be useful to weight the ratings of experts depending on their field of expertise (e.g. environmental experts get a higher weighting in the air quality rating, financial experts in the cost rating, etc.).
-
Online tools that can support this include, for example, the KonSULT Measure Option Generator and the Urban Transport Roadmaps tool, which can both inform impact appraisal with impartial estimates of expected effectiveness (see Tool section below).
-
Assess the proposed measures with an eye to their realistic and timely implementation with the given resources (pre-feasibility check). Ensure that all costs and benefits – not just those that can be easily measured or valued – are taken into account.
-
Based on the results of your assessment, reduce your long list of measures to a shortlist with the most promising measures.
-
Provide a more detailed specification for the measures on your shortlist. Consider where and when the measure should be implemented, and who will use it or be affected by it.
-
Prepare detailed cost estimates of the shortlisted measures that include estimates for all relevant categories: civil works/construction; survey, investigation, design, and mapping; institutional development/capacity development; stakeholder
engagement
and communications; equipment, vehicles, and materials; consulting services; operation and maintenance; land acquisition; incremental administrative costs; initial working capital, and; taxes and duties. Inadequate cost- estimates are often considered a significant risk in infrastructure investment appraisals.
-
Involve other departments (including the financial department) early on and provide benefits for participating. That will help you to define responsibilities and cost-sharing later on (see Activity 8.3, 9.2).
-
Identify which measures require additional or external technical support for feasibility, technical or market studies.
Tools for measure appraisal
Example table showing how the rating of listed measures can be structured. The rating can, for example, be done by experts from the city in a workshop
:
Figure 28: Example of an impact assessment of measures. Effectiveness assessment scale from -2 to 2; -2 = the measure imposes a clear risk on the achievement of the objective
, 0 = the measure has a neutral effect, 2 = the measure clearly contributes positively. Assessment scale for acceptability and value for money from 0 to 3 (based on Mattson, C., 2018. SUMPs-Up Standards for developing a SUMP Action Plan
, p. 9).

Activities beyond essential requirements
-
Co-identify measures with key stakeholders, involving them closely into option generation and appraisal.
-
Ask the public for measure ideas, for example in an online format, to inspire your long list.
-
Search for good examples beyond your own city and country.
-
Invite practitioners from other places to your city for advice.
-
Take your local decision-makers on a site visit to a city that has successfully implemented one of your key measures to increase its acceptability.
Checklist
✔Implemented and planned measures analysed.
✔ Long list of potential measures created.
✔ Exchange of experiences established with planners that have implemented interesting measures in other cities or regions.
✔ Suitable measures assessed with an eye to effectiveness (in terms of contribution to objectives), acceptability and value for money.
✔ Most promising measures selected for short list.
✔ Detailed specifications and cost estimates for shortlisted measures available.
Timing and coordination
-
After vision, objectives, and targets have been defined.
-
First identification, then assessment of measures.