SUMP works towards the vision in Gothenburg

The City of Gothenburg has a long-term vision for sustainable urban transport. In brief the vision is ‘Efficient, safe and sustainable transport for everyone’. Since Gothenburg has for long had several documents closely connected to sustainable urban transport planning, the local planning process had its starting point in the need of a connecting approach, an easy overview and content management on existing programmes, plans and policies. “Although the vision is clear, the challenge was to see what really has been decided, if some of the objectives and targets to reach the vision were no longer valid, if new ones should have been added, and find out if there was overlapping objectives and targets”, says Gunilla Fransson, a Project Manager in Mobility Management. By integrating traffic planning into the general city plans long-term visioning is made possible.

The vision for sustainable urban transport and the SUMP process need to be connected to the overall views on how to develop the city. However, in Gothenburg, like in many other cities, the yearly budget prioritises the objectives in short term. The plans and policies have to be well prepared to give the politicians the possibility to make good decisions. Active communication with and involvement of internal and external stakeholders is also important. In Gothenburg, since some years, it was clearly stated in the city council budget that the work of the administrations should work towards sustainable development in all three perspective, social, economic and ecologic. In Gothenburg city administration the Traffic and Public Transport Authority was the responsible body for the integrative SUTP process. In practice, the process has been all about combining, updating and clarifying the work that had already been done.

Photo: Copyright City of Gothenburg