The PUMAS project, “Planning Sustainable regional-Urban Mobility in the Alpine Space” is a project financed by the Alpine Space Programme and runs from July 2012 to June 2015.

Alpine Space cities face common urban mobility challenges which call for innovative and cost-effective mobility solutions. These challenges are:

• limited public/ private budget for transport infrastructure;
• excessive private car-based traffic in cities;
• large amounts of fragmented goods delivery schemes contributing to congestion;
• rising CO₂ and noise, deteriorating air quality and adverse health impacts;
• lack of/ inefficient institutional cooperation for long term solutions;
• poor recognition of interdependencies between cities and neighbouring regions;
• absence of an integrated planning approach to address mobility/ urban development/ land use planning.

The Alpine Space is a region with continued growth, including increased passenger and freight transport. It suffers both from large volumes of cross-Alpine and seasonal traffic as well as sprawl from its cities to the countryside.

The PUMAS project offers solutions to these challenges. It coordinates the development of the Sustainable regional-Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP) concept which the EC strongly promotes and, in its 2011 Transport White Paper, even suggests as a mandatory approach. Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP) has the following characteristics:

• active involvement of all stakeholders throughout the planning process;
• commitment to sustainability, i.e. balancing social equity, environmental quality and economic development;
• looking “beyond the borders” through an integrated approach between policy sectors, cooperation between authority levels and coordination across neighbouring authorities;
• focus on achieving ambitious, measurable targets;
• targeting cost internalisation i.e. reviewing transport costs and benefits for society;
• comprehensive method including all steps of the life cycle of policy making and implementation.

 The PUMAS Project aims to:

• advance SUMP, which focuses on participation, integration, evaluation and cost internalisation as a new paradigm in mobility planning;
• develop, implement and evaluate 7 pilots using SUMP methods and tools;
• generate best practice and lessons for others in the AS and beyond;
• improve the awareness, exchange, coordination and development of regional-urban mobility plans (freight and passenger) through an innovative communication platform;
• create the Alpine Space community and the National and Alpine Reference Point for SUMP in Slovenia, thus guaranteeing sustainability beyond the lifetime of the project.

The PUMAS partnership is a complementary consortium composed of 5 cities, 1 university, 1 Chamber of Commerce,1 environmental agency, 1 transport provider and 2 research centres from Italy, France, Austria, Germany and Slovenia.

The Alpine Space Programme is the EU transnational cooperation programme for the Alps. Partners from the seven Alpine countries work together to promote regional development in a sustainable way. The programme is jointly financed by the European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Partner States taking part in the activities. The contribution of the project partners coming from the EU are co-funded by ERDF up to a rate of 76 %. The remaining costs have to be covered by other public funds, depending on rules at national level.