The European Court of Auditors has announced it will conduct an audit of EU policies aimed at improving mobility in cities.
Auditors will visit cities in Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain to determine the efficacy and levels of practical application of the EU’s policies governing sustainable urban mobility. With around 70 per cent of the EU’s residents living in cities and densely populated areas – a figure projected to rise – urban mobility policies across Member States are an increasing priority. Inefficient and poorly connected transport networks in urban areas are estimated to cost national economies within the EU around €110 billion per year – more than one per cent of the GDP of each Member State – while initiatives to facilitate the free flow of traffic in areas with high levels of congestion could improve city-wide productivity by up to 30 per cent.
The EU urban mobility audit will focus on the following factors in mobility policy implementation:
- Progress made between 2014 and 2020 to address the issue of urban congestion, specifically comparing changes in congestion levels with corresponding growth in urban populations;
- The uses to which the €60 billion allocated to urban mobility measures and initiatives from the EU budget between 2014 and 2020 has been put, the cost-effectiveness of measures receiving funding and how they fit into the European Commission’s wider mobility policies; and
- The development and implementation of policies put into place by the European Commission to encourage consistent, sustainable urban mobility strategy across Member States.
Iliana Ivanova, the Member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the audit, said: “Efficient mobility management is a key issue for urban areas. Traffic congestion is a growing daily problem for many people in the EU and road transport is responsible for a significant part of air pollution and environmental noise in urban areas.”
The full EU urban mobility audit report will be published in 2020.
