Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP) in Foshan

Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport

Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning in Foshan

Background and objective

This project is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.

The city of Foshan is located in the central part of the Guangdong Province in the Greater Bay Area in South China. Not only famous for its manufacturing industry, it is also known for its public transit management mode -the Foshan Transit Alliance-, which combines government purchase services and moderate market competition.

In collaboration with the Transport Bureau of Foshan, the Foshan Transit Alliance and the China Sustainable Transportation Center (CSTC), the Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport (CLCT) project of GIZ carries out a pilot project on Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP).

A “Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan” (SUMP) is a medium to long-term strategic comprehensive transportation plan, designed to promote the sustainable and low carbon development of cities and their surrounding areas, to improve people’s quality of life, and to enhance the city’s competitiveness and vitality. Compared with traditional transportation planning, SUMP emphasizes the active participation of stakeholders and the coordination and cooperation among various sectors (especially transport, land use, environment, economic development, social policy, health and safety, and energy). In addition, SUMP aims also to:

Provide long-term, scientific, precise and people-oriented transportation; planning methods.
Better align transport and urban development planning;
Better coordinate the cooperation between different sectors and relevant technical units;
Provide sustainable financing solutions for urban green transportation development;
Promote the participation of cities in international cooperation and increase the popularity of cities at home and abroad.

The objective of the pilot project is to:

Develop a SUMP pilot in Foshan based on the Guidelines for Developing and Implementing A Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). The Guidelines were translated into Chinese language by the Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport project and can be found here;
Provide policy recommendations for the adoption of the SUMP concept in existing planning processes in other Chinese cities, based on the experience of the Foshan pilot project implementation;
Build and implement a Capacity Development Programme on SUMP for the pilot city and other Chinese cities that are part of a Community of Practitioners, including a nation-wide conference and capacity development events;
Establish an expert exchange and knowledge sharing platform to promote Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning in China.

By piloting the concept of SUMP in Foshan, the project seeks to provide a localized planning methodology and approach for Chinese policy makers and planners on national and city level to further align transport and mobility planning systems. It is envisaged that the methodology can act as a tool to develop and implement plans in line with the overarching goals of promoting green and low carbon transport as implemented in the 13th (2016-2020) and envisaged in the 14th Five-Year planning period (2021-2025) and China’s goals to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060.