Social inclusion in sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs): The case of shared mobility in Utrecht, the Netherlands

Jasmijn van der Craats, Dea van Lierop and David Duran-Rodas

Journal of Transport Geography, 2025, vol. 126, issue C

Abstract: This article explores the social inclusiveness of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs), a policy tool introduced by the European Commission to inspire local governments in developing long-term sustainable visions to address the mobility needs of everyone. The aim of SUMPs is to accelerate the shift to sustainable mobility and achieve the complete decarbonisation of European Mobility by 2050. While the rationale behind SUMPs is that local governments understand the needs of their inhabitants and visitors, concerns have arisen regarding their capacity to recognise socially disadvantaged groups, potentially exacerbating social inequalities. Socially disadvantaged groups are prone to transport poverty, limiting their access to essential services and societal participation. Using a mixed-method approach, we analyse the social inclusiveness of SUMPs, focusing on Utrecht, the Netherlands. We conduct a qualitative analysis of policy documents to provide contextual understanding and assess the inclusion of socially disadvantaged groups within SUMPs. Our findings indicate that SUMPs recognise diverse social groups, including individuals with disabilities, children, older adults, and low-income groups, and acknowledge shared mobility as a tool to reduce transport poverty. We then develop a social indicator based on the identified socially disadvantaged groups to compare their distribution with the availability of shared mobility services. These are mapped for both 2019 and 2023, drawing on the municipality of Utrecht's 2020 action plan for shared mobility, which explicitly emphasises the role of shared mobility in reducing transport poverty by improving their availability for socially disadvantaged groups. Our study highlights that neighbourhoods with low social indicators are concentrated in the outskirts of the city, whereas shared mobility services are predominantly available in the city centre. Consequently, the ambition outlined in the documents regarding shared mobility's potential to reduce transport poverty has not yet materialized in the real world. This study provides insight into the capacity of SUMPs to address social inclusion issues, offering valuable guidance for the development of effective and socially inclusive sustainable mobility policies in European cities.

Keywords: Sustainable urban mobility plans; Transport-related social exclusion; Transport poverty; Social indicator; Shared mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692325001255

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:126:y:2025:i:c:s0966692325001255

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104234

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().