Set up working structures

Step 1 of 12 Preparation & Analysis

SUMP overview

Determine planning framework →

Before data collection begins, a city needs the right people in the room and a clear agreement on how decisions are made. A Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan is a long-term, cross-sectoral effort. It spans transport, urban planning, environment, finance and social affairs, draws in operators and civil society, and often bridges several tiers of government. Without a deliberate structure to hold all of that together, actors work in parallel, decisions stall, and political backing fades. The task of Step 1 is to build that structure before anything else.

The four bodies you need

There is no universal template, but most cities combine a small set of complementary bodies. Each plays a distinct role and all four bodies matter.

Steering group

Senior officials and elected representatives. Sets objectives, resolves conflicts between departments. Meets rarely, but its visible backing is what gives the whole process credibility.

Project team

The day-to-day engine, led by a dedicated project manager. Prepares steering group material, coordinates participation and manages external studies.

Thematic groups

Optional but valuable for complex topics such as public transport, cycling and digitalisation. They dig into specifics and feed conclusions back up to the project team.

External networks

National competence centres, transnational projects, knowledge platforms. They supply guidance, training and examples from cities that have already done it.

Keep it lean but inclusive

Too many bodies slow decisions down. Too few leave out important voices. Build on committees that already exist where you can. And pay deliberate attention to who is normally not in the room, particularly the user groups most affected by poor access.

What changes in the urban outskirts

In a dense city core, "the authority" is typically one municipality with the powers it needs. In the outskirts, that assumption might break down.

The outskirts governance challenge

Responsibility for land use, roads, public transport and social services is typically split between a core city, several suburban municipalities and a regional transport body. None of them can deliver a 15-minute neighbourhood on their own.

The real task of Step 1 in the periphery is building a cross-boundary coalition rather than an internal project team.

It's important to map out which actors actually hold the levers in low- and mid-density areas. Who owns the land, who franchises the buses, who can fund a mobility hub?

Under participating organisations across the six Living Labs of DREAMS some examples capture these constellations as they emerged in this project so you can see who needed to be at the table in places comparable to yours.

A possible sequence for orientation

The exact path depends on local context, but the sequence below holds across most situations. Work through it in order.

Clarify the mandate and scope.

What geographic area does the plan cover? What is its time horizon? Who authorised it? A written mandate, however brief, anchors everything that follows.

Map your stakeholders.

Who is affected? Who can contribute? Who has formal authority over the levers you need to pull? In the outskirts, this map routinely crosses municipal and sectoral boundaries.

Design the governance model.

Use the stakeholder map to decide which bodies to create or repurpose, and who sits in each. Aim for the smallest structure that can make real decisions.

Define roles, membership and decision rules.

Ambiguity here is where plans stall. Each body needs a clear remit, a defined membership and agreed procedures for how it decides things.

Secure staff time and budget.

Participation that has no dedicated time or resources stays nominal. Treat staffing as a precondition, not a nice-to-have.

Communicate and review.

Share the structure inside the administration and, where appropriate, with the public. Build in a review point as the plan moves through later phases.

A good starting point beats a perfect organigram

Document what already exists and build on it. Transparent decision-making will do more for the plan's legitimacy than months spent designing the ideal structure from scratch.

Go deeper

For a step-by-step orientation written for small and medium-sized cities, see Module 1: SUMP basic principles (Baltic Sea Region Competence Centre on SUMP). For peer experience on governance and capacity in smaller cities, check out other 15-minute city projects and join the discussion on the 15-min cities community. Where your coalition has to span a core city and the municipalities around it, the EU practitioner briefing on governance models in metropolitan regions compares the ways that cooperation can be organised, from informal coordination to a dedicated metropolitan authority, and its good practice annex shows them at work. If your outskirt is a smaller town with a small team, the topic guide on planning in smaller cities and towns shows how to cover the basics well with limited staff and how neighbouring municipalities can pool the work.

Sources and further information

EU SUMP Guidelines, Second Edition (Rupprecht Consult, 2019), Step 1, Set up working structures.

DREAMS Deliverable 2.2: how planning, governance and business responsibilities divide across a periphery.

DREAMS Deliverable 5.1: the partner constellations assembled in each living lab.

Arbeitsstrukturen einrichten, German national SUMP portal, Bundesministerium für Verkehr.

SUMP overview

Determine planning framework →