Table 1. Paradigms of academic knowledge about urban transport Table 2. Differences between traditional transport planning and Sustainable Urban

Table 1. Paradigms of academic knowledge about urban transport. Source: Keblowski & Bassens (2015)

orthodox -classical discipline - on the individual level: users/passengers as rational actors maximizing - - on the -led, technical, and rational discipline building on empirical data rather than theory the motor of economic growth - use of mathematical/econometric computation and forecasting; costbenefit analysis as a principal measurement tool mono-functional, car-oriented neo-classical planning

sustainable embracing a wider spectrum of environmental and social aspects a environmentally friendly, healthy and participative shift towards public transport and soft transport modes stronger links between land-use and transport more attention paid to individual behaviors and lifestyle more participative ways of generating transport policies and practices

critical - technical, quantitative, descriptive, and de-politicized: - offering technological and behavioral fixes to address social and political problems underpinning transport - non-utopian: focused primarily on physical or environmental issues instead of proposing broad social or political visions - failing to confront systemic reasons behind un-sustainability - euphemizing and individualizing structural causes for mobility-related problems explicit focus on social, political, and economic relations and regulatory frameworks underpinning transport recognition of issues of gender, race, ethnicity, class, disability, and age recognition of mobility as a discriminatory norm and form of capital producing socio-spatial inequalities critique of entrepreneurial and splintering practices in transport

2.3 The European transport policy evolution

The sustainable paradigm has been the official policy for the EU cities, present in many reports in the past three decades. Since the CJEU judgment case in 1985 demonstrated the transport sector s failure (European Commission, 1985), the EC has started to develop transport policies. After the Maastricht Treaty had been signed (European Commission, 1992b), the EC developed some transport measures, such as the White and Green Papers, that addressed transport policies from 1992 until the beginning of the 2000s (European Commission, 1992a, 1995, 1998, 2001) to overcome the impacts from the previous decades. Further, during the 2000s, those policies evolved to a more sustainable approach, although still focused on the transport itself, where they have been fostering the SUTPs (European Commission, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008), which was further replaced by the SUMP concept (European Commission, 2009, 2011, 2013c, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021; Rupprecht Consult, 2019; Wefering et al., 2013). In a nutshell, the EC s documents show its urban mobility policy evolution (Figure 2) from transport measures to the recommendation toward the SUMPs, the object of this thesis. Additionally, these documents reinforce that the challenge of solving mobility conflicts occurs in the cities (Halpern, 2014). Therefore, integrated, sustainable, and safe urban mobility becomes one of the priorities in European policy, supported by high investments in the sector. Since 1995, 10 billion euros have financed programs to promote sustainable mobility projects (Halpern, 2014). Moreover, the EC constantly invests in urban transport research, where the CIVITAS initiative is the most significant representative.

Throughout all these years, the EC has also spent money on specific programs, such as PROSPECTS (Procedures for Recommending Sustainable Planning of European City Transport Systems), TRANSPLUS (TRANSPort, Land Use, and Sustainability), among others, where they had measures to restrict the use of private vehicles and regenerate central areas (May et al., 2003). Although those short-term actions brought many positive effects, they have also proven ineffective in changing mobility patterns and behaviors. As a result, the need for the EC cities to prepare SUMPs has arisen.