ASEAN launches policy documents on sustainable urban and metropolitan mobility
The 27th ASEAN Transport Ministers Meeting chaired by Cambodia on 11 November 2021 adopted the Phnom Penh Declaration on Sustainable Urban Mobility, which supports the objectives of economic development, social equity, safety, security, and environmental sustainability. This is the first Declaration on Sustainable Transport issued by the ASEAN Transport Ministers focusing on urban and metropolitan regional mobility.
The Declaration acknowledges challenges in the promotion and achievement of efficient and sustainable urban mobility in cities and regions, in which addressing these challenges entails multidisciplinary actions and cooperation by all relevant stakeholders at local, metropolitan, national, regional, and global levels.
The Phnom Penh Declaration on Sustainable Urban Mobility spells out the adoption of two policy documents, namely (i) Guidelines for the Development of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) in ASEAN Metropolitan Regions; and (ii) Toolbox for the Establishment of Metropolitan Transport Executives (MTE) in ASEAN Metropolitan Regions, which are part of the deliverables under the Kuala Lumpur Transport Strategic Plan 2016-2025.
The Guidelines for SUMP provides guidance to relevant stakeholders at national, regional and local levels, in public policy, industry and civil society for strengthening, up-scaling and improvement of urban and metropolitan mobility institutional governance and planning processes.
Meanwhile, the Toolbox for MTE provides responsible authorities with tools to overcome barriers to design and implement sustainable transport policies. For this purpose, MTE will effectively coordinate and execute, on a tactical level, the sustainable transport strategies that have collectively been decided and supported by all relevant authorities.
This toolbox draws on the experiences of the public transport industry, urban planners, and policy makers around the world. It focuses on the structure and governance of mobility services and transport systems, and is complementary to the Guidelines for SUMP, which develops the concept and practice of integrated and inclusive planning processes in greater detail.
Through the Phnom Penh Declaration on Sustainable Urban Mobility, ASEAN Transport Ministers encourage the promotion, development, and operationalisation of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans at national, metropolitan and city levels as well as the development of Metropolitan Transport Executives in ASEAN Member States. This includes the active participation of all stakeholders in the transport ecosystem, in order to further enhance integration of sustainable transport and land use planning in ASEAN.
The two sustainable urban and metropolitan mobility documents were developed by ASEAN under support of the ASEAN – German Technical Cooperation Project on “Sustainable Mobility in Medium-Sized Metropolitan Regions” implemented by the GFA Consulting on behalf of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The sustainable urban and metropolitan mobility documents are available in the following links:
The MTE Toolbox and SUMP Guidelines will be published in Indonesian, Khmer, Lao, Thai and Vietnamese this month.
