Framing change in Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan guidelines

Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) Annual International Conference 2026, RGS and Imperial College London, 01–04 September 2026

This talk examined Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) as collaborative frameworks through which institutional, professional, and participatory actors co-create urban mobility futures in response to socioecological crises. It was based on a qualitative document analysis of the 2013 and 2019 SUMP guidelines, together with European Commission mobility communications from 2009 to 2023. The presentation explored how these policy documents articulate competing or complementary narratives of change, particularly in relation to incremental and transformative pathways. It argued that engaging with transformation literature provides an opportunity to examine urban mobility from a transformative perspective, rather than relying solely on the more established transition framework.

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