Description
After specifying the sustainability impacts and their development in the city-specific scenarios, plausible policy interventions that can cause or significantly influence the impacts observed in the respective scenarios need to be determined. Local policy interventions represent the focus of the SPROUT project and can be defined as measures, instruments, actions, strategies or institutional arrangements that can be implemented, changed or abolished by local urban mobility actors. They can be characterised by the following elements:
- soft measures
- legislation and regulations
- the adoption of new business models by city-owned operators and providers
- coordination and the provision of support for private operators and providers
- the formulation of strategies
- institution building
- procurement and contracting
The methodological steps of this policy impact analysis can be summarised as follows:
First, policy instruments that are consistent with the Do-nothing scenarios were examined by creating an inventory of policy interventions. Sources beyond the SPROUT cities’ do-nothing scenarios were a review of scientific literature, manuals (such as the SUMP topic guides), and key websites, including Eltis and CIVITAS . Research partners also brought in their experiences from previous and on-going projects. The aggregated list comprised 90 policy measures under the following topic areas:
- Public transport
- Active mobility
- New mobility services
- Reduction of private car use
- Freight and urban logistics
- E-mobility
- Financing, planning, and procurement.
The identified policies were assessed in terms of the likeliness to be implemented. This rating was based on the share of 2nd and 3rd layer SPROUT cities that have implemented the policy instrument, and a rating of its implementation feasibility. A second rating category was assumptions about the effectiveness of the policies, based on a rating of 2nd and 3rd layer cities, which have implemented the tool. The tools were linked to individual impact areas as outlined in the previous step.
The resulting list of policy instruments is provided in the SRPOUT Policy Inventory. Cities can use it as inspiration for the selection of adequate policy responses to the urban mobility transition
