The EU Urban Mobility Indicators as a tool to monitor a Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning process: a comparative study of their applicability in Italy and Colombia

Mobility is the mean that allows the citizens of a community to access of different services, facilities and opportunities for the integral development in areas like education, health and economy. To meet these necessities, the governments provide infrastructure and transport services to facilitate these movements. However, these services are not always the most adequate, since they do not fulfil the peoples' needs and do not adjust to the current challenges in terms of climate changes. According to Statista, transportation is responsible for the 8.24 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) in 2023 representing a 21% of the global greenhouse gases emissions delivered to our atmosphere thus contributing in great manner to climate change, making it in the second highest emission second worldwide (1). On the other hand, mobility issues such as the traffic jams make quality of life of people is being affected by the long time spent moving to their daily activities. Considering the above, Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) have emerged as essential tools for the local authorities as a public policy to improving the urban transport systems mitigating the impacts of mobility problems from the social equity, economic and environmental perspective. To understand how SUMPs are being applied in different latitudes, this thesis aims to identify key areas for improvement and shared learning strategies among the SUMP from Turin (Italy), Valle de Aburrá and Cúcuta (Colombia) metropolitan areas. This research is based on a comparative analysis of these plans, using statistical data from household surveys that are the basis for the strategies of each SUMPs, complemented with an evaluation of the state of mobility through the Urban Mobility Indicators (UMI) developed by the European Commission. These indicators provide a standardized and comprehensive framework for the comparison across SUMPs, in order to establish baselines, the assessment of urban mobility performance, and the identification of similarities, weaknesses and gaps in sustainability objectives, data collections methods, and strategies approaches. By comparing the mobility data available in the three case studies upon which the respective SUMPs have been built, this thesis assesses to which extent UMIs can be used in the present situation, thus identifying how data collection activities should be adapted to make more effective their use, and vice-versa which are the limitations of the proposed set of indicators if the goal is to draw comparative analyses across radically different cities. Finally, recommendations on the integration of best practices from each case study are offered.