On 25 September 2007, The EU Commission presented its Green Paper on Urban Mobility, titled ‘Towards a new culture for urban mobility’. The aim of the Green Paper is to “open a debate on the key issues of urban mobility: free-flowing and greener towns and cities, smarter urban mobility and an urban transport which is accessible, safe and secure for all European citizens”.

RICS welcomes the Green Paper and fully supports the efforts of the European Commission to find answers to the ever increasing mobility challenges. RICS especially appreciates that the coordination between urban and interurban transport and land use planning is recognised as an important element to ensure sustainable urban mobility, as RICS advocated during earlier consultation rounds through the concept of Transport Development Areas (TDAs).

More information on Transport Development Areas can be found in the download section on the right-hand side of the screen ('RICS position on sustainable urban transport').

Besides the emphasis on TDAs, the RICS recommendations include:

• Look at the possibility of congestion charging, whilst recognising there is no single template. Schemes must be tailored to meet the needs of the particular urban context.
• Encourage a modal shift to public transport, cycling and walking.
• Look at the spatial relationship between the use of land and transport infrastructure

The Green Paper posed 25 questions. RICS and its members responded to the relevant questions. The detailed RICS response to the 25 questions of the Green Paper can be found in the download section.

An Action Plan on urban mobility will follow in the autumn of 2008. For each proposed action that it includes, the Action Plan will indicate a time line for implementation and identify the responsibilities of the various actors.

Transport is one of the necessary elements to tackle if we want to create sustainable urban areas, but not the only one. A holistic debate on sustainable communities is needed.

For more information or comments, please contact Sander Scheurwater at sscheurwater@rics.org