Hero picture
news

Leading transformation with innovation: how UMii rethinks urban mobility

30/05/2022
  • Global
  • Resilience
  • Sustainability
  • Urban development
  • Urban mobility
  • Urban transport policy

Cities’ public transport will have to continuously adapt to become more resilient

Cities today find themselves in the driving seat when it comes to experimenting new approaches to repurpose limited city space. Their innovations could help to better meet travel needs, meet pressing requirements to bring transport carbon emissions to zero, and overall create better, more sustainable cities.

Moreover, cities’ public transport will have to continuously adapt to become more resilient and continue to provide mobility in crises we are seeing more often, such as global warming, geopolitical conflict and global health.

UMii showcases mobility innovations from cities across the world

The Urban Mobility Innovation Index (UMii) was launched in 2016 by UITP and the Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai (RTA) to share knowledge and gather insights into cities’ ways of fostering innovation to address urban transport challenges. It is an indicator framework that assesses the maturity of a city’s innovation ecosystem in urban mobility, using a collection of indicators.

The first UMii report was delivered in 2017. Since then, the world has been through many important transformations and cities have had to face many challenges…

Now, UITP is proud to announce the launch of the Urban Mobility Urban Innovation Index 2021 report, including important improvements better addressing new contextual realities and highlighting how cities have transformed over the last years. Alongside UITP and RTA, the University of Žilina (UNIZA) has taken the leading role in the research work for UMii since December 2020.

The aim of the Urban Mobility Innovation Index is not to rank cities, but to engage in a reflexive process, to share best practices, and to showcase innovative solutions.
Karine Sbirrazzuoli
Co-Director Knowledge & Innovation, UITP

Reflecting on innovation with 38 cities

The new UMii report highlights lessons from 38 innovative cities worldwide, aiming to inspire other city administrations to learn, experiment, and lead mobility innovations that contribute to a transformation towards safer, healthier, quieter, cleaner, and happier cities for all.

The report captures recent changes and translates best practices into practical and actionable recommendations for cities to strategically integrate innovation as part of urban transport planning.

One main take-away is that cities are proactively engaging with innovation more than ever, and they are also experimenting with a wider range of innovations – underpinning these innovations are a wider set of goals which cities aim to achieve.

It is precisely the ability to deal with complexity that makes innovative cities more successful. Mobility is much more than planning for efficient transport: it is also about quality of life, equity, participation, health, urban design, ecology etc. The 10 key topics highlighted in the UMii report summarise well the most important findings and recommendations relevant today.
Yannick Cornet
Senior Researcher of Intelligent Transport Systems, University of Zilina (UNIZA)

Innovation comes in many forms

If anything, the UMii report shows that there is no silver bullet for innovation. Innovation is not to be understood as merely ‘smart’ technological innovations. They rather can relate directly to mobility innovations in terms of mobility modes, services and infrastructures, or they can refer to ‘smart’ uses of data e.g. intelligent transport systems. They can have to do with novel planning processes, tools and engagement practises, or to novel regulatory, financial or institutional enablers facilitating the work of transport planning agencies.

From Mexico City’s ‘Muévete en Bici’ (Move by Bike) that every Sunday closes 50km of streets to motorised traffic, to micro-mobility points in Budapest and from automated mobility trials in Singapore to Bogotá’s eco-driving training programme for women to close the gender gap in transport: innovation comes in many forms.

This website uses cookies

This website uses third-party website tracking technologies to give you the best experience, help us understand and continually improve how the site works, and to display advertisements according to users' interests. You consent to the use of our cookies by continuing to browse this website.

Cookies page
  • Essentials Essentials

    Those cookies are essentials to the functioning of the site and cannot be disabled in our systems. They are generally set as a response to actions you take that constitute a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, or filling out forms. You can set your browser to block or be notified of these cookies, but some parts of the website may be affected. These cookies do not store any personally identifying information.

    cloudflare

    Cloudflare uses various cookies to maximize network resources, manage traffic, and protect our customers’ sites from malicious traffic.

    epic-cookie-prefs

    Cookie that remembers the user’s cookie settings preferences. It allows to avoid asking the user about their preferences each time they visit the website.

  • Performance

    This Google Analytics cookie is used to persist session state. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic anonymously.

    _ga

    This Google Analytics cookie is created when you first visit our site. It contains the version of Google Analytics, a randomly generated ID and a datetime group of your first visit. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic anonymously.

    _ga_(STREAM ID)

    This Google Analytics cookie is used to persist session state. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic anonymously.

This website uses cookies

We use cookies and similar techonologies to adjust your preferences, analyze traffic and measure the effectiveness of campaigns. You consent to the use of our cookies by continuing to browse this website.