Regions

The Regions Working Group was established in response to calls from members for greater attention to regions’ unique mobility patterns and needs.

With a territorial scope that can include cities of all sizes and rural and peri-urban areas, the challenges they face require different approaches and solutions to those faced by single cities. Regions can have different competencies, politics, geographies and demographics, allowing them to play a pivotal role in developing and testing public transport services and transport and mobility infrastructure on a wider and more generalized scale.

As for cities, having an effective transport infrastructure network, which enables the free flow of people, goods and services, and permits the necessary commute for work, education, and leisure is central to regional development. It emphasizes the significant impact that regional transport and mobility policies can have in a variety of sectors including spatial planning, economic development, land use and housing. Regional authorities are thus key in making sure local transport and mobility policies are coherent among themselves and improve interconnectivity between their multiple urban, suburban and rural areas. This is no easy task, analysing new types of multilevel governance and cooperation between regional and municipal authorities even more important!

Urbanisation has made territories closer and more dependent on each other than before. The movement of people and goods going from city to city or from rural areas to cities has increased exponentially, exerting more and more stress on public transport and transport infrastructure. Thus, regions need to explore new policies and solutions to make their transport network more sustainable while ensuring good and accessible transport services. It has pushed public authorities to work together and look for new partnerships and ways to work with the private sector. Either by financing or developing new solutions, the private sector has become a key stakeholder in the mobility and transport sector offering a wide range of services that can help with the transition towards more efficient and sustainable regional transportation.

This working group explores the main policy and governance challenges faced by regional authorities and looks into the latest approaches and solutions to tackle them.

Topic priorities for 2024

Our current topic priorities for 2024 are the following:

1. To explore how to design and implement regional Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) to create better cooperation mechanisms between levels of governance
2. To understand the role of regional authorities in making the TEN-T network a reality
3. To analyse how regional authorities can contribute to the electrification of transport networks currently happening in the mobility and transport sector 
4. To exchange on policies to improve public transport networks between urban-suburban areas and in rural areas
5. To explore new solutions and policies around regional freight transport