2.3 Project's PurposeThe purpose of this project is to develop awareness of policy makers of sustainable mobility options in cities and build capacity of city managers and planners to plan and implement incremental, quick-impact interventions that can improve urban mobility. To address the lack of information amongst planners and decision makers on the key mobility challenges confronting their cities, the project will develop, field-test and disseminate a "RapidAssessment Tool". Quick-Impact field projects will be implemented in 3-4 target cities. These will highlight how simple but innovative intervention such as design of selected streets as shared spaces that fulfill space and linking functions can improve mobility outcome for citizens and businesses. Based on the Project and previous work done by the Urban Basic Services Branch, collaboration will also be sought with the International Financial Institutions, with a view to supporting target cities in securing financing for medium and long-term mobility investments.
To achieve and maintain sustainable patterns of mobility, cities require to put in placeappropriate regulatory and institutional arrangements. While "ideal" and "comprehensive" arrangements can take a long time to be established, incremental and quick - impact solutions can again be fruitful - for example a simple GIS based fleet database can make public bus services more efficient in many cities. Based on the results of the Rapid Assessment as mentioned above and through dialogue at the city and national level, this project will support two to three target cities in incrementally adopting a set of new institutional or regulatory arrangements that provide quick and visible benefits to citizens and businesses.
The project will benefit all city dwellers, particularly the poor. The commuting public,businesses of all sizes, transport service providers and freight and goods delivery services are amongst the main beneficiary groups who will benefit irom improvements in urban mobility. City dwellers as a whole will indirectly benefit irom improved air quality. Through the use of the Rapid Assessment tool, the project will focus on the mobility challenges faced by women, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.
Local Governments of the respective target cities viz Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso,Kathmandu, Nepal, Kigali, Rwanda and Vientiane, Lao PDR will be the key partners. The Rapid Assessment tool will be developed through collaboration with a leading international organisation working in the area of urban Mobility. Three potential partners viz. Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), EMBARQ (The World Resources Institute for sustainable Transport) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) have already expressed interest against a call issued by UN-Habitat for this work. Other Knowledge partners may include CODATU (Cooperation for Urban Mobility in the Developing World), U1TP (International Association of Public Transport). Internally, the Urban Basic Services Branch will collaborate closely with other branches, particularly the Urban Planning and Design Branch, The Urban Economy Branch and the Project Office in the implementation of the project. In developing the Rapid Assessment tool, collaboration will also be establishedwith the Urban Research and Capacity Building Branch.
