Active Travel in Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans. An Italian overview

The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) has been identified as the privileged tool for addressing economic, social, and environmental issues in transport policy at the urban scale from a long-term strategic perspective. Indeed, urban policymakers intend adopting measures to cope with the negative externalities generated by transport. The focus is on reducing traffic flows (number and length) of motorized-trips and minimize their related impact. Among these measures, together with electric vehicles promotion, active travel (AT) – including walking and cycling – represents an interesting strategy. This is especially true as local public transport (LPT) is progressively less attractive, also due to overcrowding and lower service quality, since the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. AT, moreover, creates the preconditions for a healthier life. Within this context, it is interesting to investigate to what extent SUMPs promote AT as a solution for achieving sustainable mobility (SM) at the urban scale. The paper analyses, by looking at SUMPs adopted in major Italian cities, the AT measures undertaken. The Italian case is of particular interest since its motorization rate is second only to Luxembourg in the whole European Union. Specifically, the paper exploits a multiple case-study comparative approach allowing to identify the correlation between main SUMP characteristics and AT-related initiatives. The main findings of the paper show that infrastructural AT projects play the lion role thus casting a shadow on the likely effectiveness of AT promotion. In fact, a comprehensive package approach (e.g. citizens engagement, land-use planning, gamification, data collection, etc.) for AT promotion is still lacking.