The BSR SUMP Competence Centre: your one-stop hub for sustainable urban mobility planning

How can cities turn sustainable mobility ambitions into practical actions? Where can planners find reliable tools, tested approaches and inspiring examples from other cities?

The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) SUMP Competence Centre helps answer these questions. Designed especially for small and medium-sized cities, it brings together practical tools, training opportunities, city experiences and expert guidance to support every stage of Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP). For smaller municipalities, where staff and organisational resources may be limited, this kind of practical support can make it easier to set objectives, select measures, assess their impact and adapt the planning process to local conditions.

Whether you are developing your first SUMP, updating an existing plan or looking for better ways to monitor progress, the Competence Centre helps you find the support you need. Available at bsr-sump.eu, it helps cities move from planning to implementation with confidence.

Turn plans into measurable results

A common challenge for cities is knowing whether mobility measures are delivering the desired results. The Competence Centre addresses this by offering practical monitoring and evaluation tools developed through the SUMPs for BSR project.

Cities can use the Monitoring & Evaluation Plan Template to structure their local evaluation process, while the Indicator Selector Tool helps them identify indicators that match their priorities, available data and resources.

Rather than creating overly complex monitoring systems, these tools help cities start with a manageable set of indicators and build their capacity over time. This allows municipalities to make informed decisions, demonstrate progress and communicate results more effectively.

Everything you need for SUMP planning in one place

The heart of the Competence Centre is the BSR SUMP Knowledge Hub, a resource library supporting different stages of the planning process (https://bsr-sump.eu/docs/). It brings together guidance documents, reports, case studies, tools and training materials, including all outputs of the SUMPs for BSR project and resources from other projects addressing sustainable mobility and Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning.

The hub’s search function and filters make it easy to find resources for specific needs. Materials can be browsed by topic, stage of the SUMP process, geographical area, target audience and publication type. For example, users looking for guidance on citizen participation, road safety or mobility monitoring can quickly narrow their search to relevant resources. The Centre also provides insights into the specific characteristics of Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning in individual BSR countries: https://bsr-sump.eu/country-profiles/.

Learn from real city experiences

The Competence Centre goes beyond theory by showcasing practical examples from cities that have tested innovative solutions supporting walking and cycling. Guidance drawn from these experiments addresses key issues such as setting objectives, cooperation between organisations, stakeholder engagement and communication. By learning from successful experiments and challenges encountered by others, cities can reduce risks and make better-informed decisions before investing in larger-scale measures.

Build your skills through free online training

Those interested in strengthening their Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning skills can access a free online training programme featuring five self-paced modules covering:

• The fundamentals of Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Walking and cycling data collection
• Experimentation and pilot projects
• Stakeholder engagement

In addition, users can access webinar recordings, workshop materials and a variety of supporting resources to deepen their knowledge whenever it suits them.

Join a growing community of cities

The Competence Centre continues to evolve through cooperation between cities, experts and mobility practitioners across the Baltic Sea Region. Developed through the SUMPs for BSR project and supported by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme, it combines academic expertise with practical experience in working with local authorities and a regional network connecting cities across several countries. Its resources can be valuable both to people beginning work on a SUMP and to teams updating existing plans or considering developing one in the future.

Start exploring today

Ready to take the next step in sustainable urban mobility planning?

Visit bsr-sump.eu to explore the tools, knowledge and city experiences available through the BSR SUMP Competence Centre.

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