The European members of UITP, the International Association for Public transport, very much welcome the Council conclusions on the Action Plan on Urban Mobility adopted on 24 June 2010. The public transport professionals share the analysis of the Ministers that future sustainable urban mobility requires specific and targeted policies from all levels of government within their respective responsibilities.

Without imposing European wide top-down solutions, the European Institutions have a role to play in helping to bring about this change. The solution will not be a “one fits all” policy but will be multifaceted, encompassing visionary integrated urban policies, developing an attractive alternative mobility offer based on a high quality public transport network, stable funding and investment schemes, encouraging more sustainable mobility behaviors, ….

UITP especially welcomes the formulated invitation to the Commission “to ensure that the new transport White Paper contains targets and policies for promoting more efficient, sustainable and safe and healthy urban mobility”. UITP is convinced that such targets help to focus minds in a complex policy area like urban mobility. For this reason, the association has set itself during its last Congress in 2009, the target to “Double the market share of public transport by 2025 worldwide”.

We encourage the European Commission to take up this invitation and set ambitious targets that will help all urban mobility actors to contribute within their responsibility areas to bringing about the needed shift to more sustainable urban mobility patterns.

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Notes to Editors

UITP (International Association of Public Transport) is the international network for public transport authorities and operators, policy decision-makers, scientific institutes and the public transport supply and service industry. It is a platform for worldwide cooperation, business development and the sharing of know-how between its 3,200 members from 90 countries. UITP is the global advocate for public transport and sustainable mobility, and the promoter of innovations in the sector. For more information, please visit www.uitp.org.