SOLEZ - Smart Solutions supporting Low Emission Zones and other low-carbon mobility policies in EU cities

In Central Europe, increasing planning capacities of the public sector and related entities for low-carbon mobility is a key priority to help reducing air pollution, mainly in Urban Areas. Starting from this consideration, within SOLEZ project, 8 Central Europe cities have elaborated local Action Plans aiming at boosting sustainable urban mobility and at effectively exploiting Low Emission Zones concept.

8 cities with different characteristics and level of maturity in the implementation of sustainable mobility policies. However, project activities highly contributed to empower less experience partners and facilitated knowledge exchange developing a habit of cooperation that reflected locally in a solid stakeholder involvement process on sustainable mobility issues at FUA level. This can be considered one of the main project achievement that contributed to policy improvement in all target FUAs.

Benefiting from benchmarking studies and common guidelines developed trans-nationally, the SOLEZ Action Plans have been elaborated with the direct involvement of key stakeholders at functional urban area level and they have been formally adopted and integrated into SUMPs or existing mobility planning instruments to ensure a long lasting impact in the 8 Central Europe functional urban areas.

In addition, three innovative tools have been developed and pilot tested to tackle specific requirements emerged from the Action Plans elaboration. To support sustainability and mainstreaming of the developed solutions, preference have been given to open-source software whenever possible, interoperability with already existing ICT solutions, modular development of the tools and of organizational measures resulted in a great flexibility in the adoption and easier transfer to other FUAs in Europe.

Furthermore, key actors responsible for long-term sustainability and maintenance of proposed solutions have always been directly involved in the development and testing of tool themselves, in some case providing also financial contribution to ensure real commitment and interest for post-project sustainability.

More information about the tools can be found in a dedicated section.