The NICHES+ project developed twelve practitioner manuals innovative measures for making urban transport more efficient and sustainable. The manuals aim to make these measures mainstream urban transport approaches in Europe.

The measures are included under four broad themes - transport accessibility, planning and use of interchanges, traffic management, and automated and space-efficient vehicles. The manuals explain how to implement such schemes, the costs that will be incurred, the benefits of the measures and which stakeholders to involve.

Sustainable urban mobility planning is a departure from the standard method of transport planning. It is based on the principles of sustainable development, orientated to achieving objectives - economic well-being, reduced pollution, improved social inclusion - rather than being just about building transport infrastructure.

Selecting and using indicators to assess policies and measures against is a consistent problem for transport planners and decision-makers. While indicators related to areas such as road safety, air quality and travel time are fairly well known and have a substantial knowledge-base behind them, others connected with themes like economic or health impacts are less well understood.

KonSULT aims to assist policy makers, professionals and interest groups to understand the challenges of achieving sustainability in urban transport, and to identify appropriate policy measures and packages. It also provides detailed information on individual policy measures which will be of relevance to professionals, researchers and students.

This note was requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism for EU Members to provide an overview of the concept of Sustainable Urban Transport Plans (SUTPs) by tying its analysis to the relationship between sustainability and urban mobility.

Although the concept of sustainable urban mobility planning is now mainstream in European cities, a number of common challenges remain. An awareness of these challenges is required so that they can be adequately planned for using Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). Innovative and transferable solutions for these challenges are also being sought at present.

Developing sustainable transport solutions, whether involving new infrastructure, services, or communications activities, requires the involvement and engagement of relevant stakeholders to ensure their success. This process goes hand in hand with project management, which comprises all the key activities of ensuring that project runs in a cost-effective, efficient and productive manner.