On November 16, 2023, the Warsaw City Council adopted the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) for the Warsaw Metropolis, an area with a population of over 3 million people.
A Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) is a strategic document referred to as “the cornerstone of European urban mobility policy”, the effects of which are “to satisfy the mobility needs of people and businesses in cities and their surroundings for a better quality of life”. SUMP is an element of efforts for the European Green Deal, being the plan for the EU to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
According to the European Commission’s recommendation, cities remain responsible for developing and adopting SUMP and then implementing the measures contained therein, but the role of the State is to help improve the quality of SUMP and better adapt them to the EU framework. For this purpose, already in 2022, the SUMP Competence Center was established within the structures of the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure.
The recently adopted SUMP of the Warsaw Metropolis means that after 14 years, Warsaw has gained a new urban mobility policy.
Warsaw and the surrounding towns are not separate islands, but influence each other. These are both economic and social connections – and with them there always comes the need to move people and goods. That is why the adopted plan covers the entire area of the Warsaw Metropolis – 70 municipalities and 9 districts with a total area of 6,000 km2, where over 3 million people live.
We know that the vision of a safe, attractive and well-connected metropolis will remain only a vision, unless based on a long-term, coherent strategy. For this reason, the SUMP contains specific objectives aimed at reducing the negative impact of transport on people and the environment.
The adoption of SUMP was also a necessary condition in order to apply for co-financing of infrastructure investments from the European Union’s funds
– says Maciej Florczak, Head of the Mobility Policy Department at the Office of Architecture and Spatial Planning in the Warsaw City Hall.
The representative of the Warsaw Municipality also emphasizes that thanks to the adopted goals and indicators that the city must achieve, the implementation of SUMP means, among others:
- faster development of public transport, especially rail transport, also outside Warsaw, including ensuring access to public transport for people who currently lack it;
- fare and ticket integration between more municipalities;
- taking further actions to reduce road accidents;
- more bike paths;
- more parking lots at interchange stations;
- implementation of the MaaS idea (including shared mobility);
- better access to services close to people’s home;
- bold activities for clean air;
- easier organization of safe streets with low-speed vehicle traffic and paid parking zones;
- better spatial planning, coordinated between metropolitan municipalities;
- more friendly transport of goods.
The SUMP of the Warsaw Metropolis also defines the concepts the Mobile City Association proposed during the public consultation process. These are concepts that are important for the functioning of the transport phenomena fostered by the association. These concepts include in particular:
- MaaS (Mobility-as-a-Service): promoting the transition from owning a personal mean of transport (mainly a car) – a system that allows meeting the transport needs of residents by using one application combining the offer of both public and private transport providers, including shared mobily services, navigation systems and payment technologies;
- mobility hub: a parking lot within the MaaS concept dedicated for shared vehicles: scooters, mopeds and cars (including their zero-emission versions with charging stations), providing in one location access to various types of shared vehicle systems at interchange stations, shopping centers, hotels and housing estates.
You can download the Warsaw Metropolis SUMP here (available only in Polish).
