The Sustainable Mobility for All (SUM4All) partnership is excited to release the second edition of its Catalogue of Policy Measures toward Sustainable Mobility (CPM) — an important resource for transport decision-makers and practitioners who are looking to promote safe, green, equitable, and efficient mobility. I sat down with the report team but also with some of the end-users of the Catalogue to find out more about this work.
Here is what I learned:
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: What is the Catalogue of Policy Measures?
Nancy Vandycke (SUM4AllProgram Manager): It is a unique repository of all the policy knowledge we have--as international organizations, business associations, civil society, private companies, and bilateral partners — on what countries can do in transport to reach the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Did you know that countries around the world have already experimented with/implemented some of 194 different measures to achieve sustainable mobility?
Of course, not all instruments are equally relevant for countries. So, we assessed the value of each policy instrument in the Catalogue with three scores: its impact on universal access, efficiency, safety, and green mobility; its country relevance, and its impact on resilience.
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: How does the CPM help the road safety agenda?
Nhan Tran (Head of Safety and Mobility, World Health Organization). One of the most important aspects is that the CPM is aligned with our “safe system approach” for road safety. From the perspective of the World Health Organization, we are most concerned about safety, but we also recognize the important interlinkage between safety, environmental considerations, urban planning, and physical activities. The CPM embraces the multi-dimensional nature of transport by providing a menu of policy instruments to achieve multiple goals at the same time. In fact, the CPM has guided us [WHO] in our thinking in the development of the global plan for the new UN Decade of Action for Road Safety (launched in 2021).
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: How does the CPM help energy and mobility?
Ben Hartley (Principal Energy Efficiency and Cooling Specialist at Sustainable Energy for All) The CPM is an important resource to the energy community. For those working at the nexus of energy and mobility, it includes key policy measures related to fuel economy, energy efficiency, and energy planning that are crucial steps to make transport and mobility systems more efficient, in support of sustainable energy systems and our climate goals.
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: How has this CPM added value to your work on freight?
Jan Hoffmann (Chief, Trade Logistics Branch, UNCTAD): At UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), we contributed — and benefited — from the CPM. As a member of the SUM4All Partnership, we took the lead on policy instruments to include in the CPM to improve the efficiency of transport systems. We made sure that the Catalogue covers both passengers and freight. We are now developing a new Global Transport Costs Dataset on International Trade (GTCDIT), which will help us predict the impact of transport cost shocks on the economy and guide the selection of the most impactful policy instruments.
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: How has this Catalogue informed your work at the World Bank?
Gerald Ollivier (Lead Transport Specialist, World Bank): The CPM provides a handy quick checklist to compare what the World Bank is proposing to its client countries with what is good practice internationally. Additionally, it presents each policy instrument from multiple perspectives, including the impact on decarbonization (green goal), efficiency, safety, and inclusive access. This ensures a balanced approach that we can use for our clients.
In addition, I also found the GRA in Action Series extremely useful because it uses policy tools with a higher level of detail. These papers frame data-sharing and e-mobility, analyze tradeoffs, and systematically present actions for different thematic areas and types of countries.
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: How can this tool support the climate agenda?
Xavier Espinet (Transport Economist, World Bank): First and foremost, I find the CPM quite easy to look at and use. I could rapidly and comprehensively look at the most efficient and optimal policies to decarbonize the transport sector for each of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean Region. It is an excellent and in-depth resource for developing key country priority actions in a concise and timely manner. In particular, I found the CPM to be extremely useful while I was developing the Latin America and the Caribbean Region Climate Change Action Plan.
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: Where can we find the CPM and how can we use it?
Mary Ngaratoki Fabian (Economist, SUM4All) The CPM is accessible for free on the SUM4All website. Everyone can browse the 194 policy measures, and filter them by mode of transport, impact on policy goal, or country relevance.
But what is exciting is that this Catalogue can be used to generate Prototype Action Plans by country. Using a Selection Algorithm developed by the Partnership, and applying it to the CPM, it is possible to identify the most impactful policy instruments for a given country. This is quite unique and new. So far, policy priorities have been selected based on the knowledge of experts. We now have an objective, coherent, and systematic mechanism to identify the most impactful policy instruments for a given country.
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: How do you integrate new thinking into the CPM?
Mary Ngaratoki Fabian (Economist, SUM4All. The CPM is a dynamic resource. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we expanded the CPM with 12 policy instruments to reflect the impact of the public health crisis on the transport sector (e.g. “enhanced sanitary protocols in passenger public transport”). We also enriched the original CPM of 2019 by giving more granularity on how to implement some of those policy measures, with examples. Specifically, we deep-dived into policies related to data sharing, e-mobility, and the transport and energy nexus. Findings from these works are first released in a report format (GRA in Action Series), and then integrated into the online Catalogue of Policy Measures.
Isabella Rolz Sandoval: What are the next steps?
Nancy Vandycke (SUM4All, Program Manager). This year, we will continue to enrich the CPM, diving deeper into policy instruments related to safety, gender, public transport, and freight and logistics. This will be done by our 56 member organizations working through our six working groups. With this menu of policy instruments, the SUM4All Partnership provides a framework for structured and coherent guidance on how to change the trajectory of the sector. We know sustainable mobility will be essential to the future of people and the planet, and I am glad SUM4All was able to give decisionmakers a practical, actionable tool to initiate real change.
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