Sustainable Urban Mobility in Developing Countries
The rapid and often unplanned and uncoordinated growth of cities has seriously compromised existing transportation systems and significantly increased the challenge of creating new transportation systems, especially in developing countries. It is indeed in developing countries that the greatest growth in motor vehicles has been seen in the past few years and is expected in the future, primarily in urban areas. The environmental and social impacts are significant and directly related to quality of life and urban productivity. These impacts include congestion, energy consumption, air pollution, and traffic crashes. Thus, urban transportation issues are of foremost importance to support the mobility requirements in these growing cities and require new approaches.
The course aims to enhance the capacity of local decision makers and urban and transportation planners to formulate and implement appropriate policies that contribute to sustainability in urban transport in developing countries. It allows an analysis of the important issues of sustainable transport including transport demand management, improved public and non-motorized transport, environmental protection, road safety, and gender in transport. In order to achieve sustainability, it also provides some means such as economic and financial instruments, institutional improvements, capacity building, regulation of markets and environmental standards.
- Module 1: Urban development and transport
- Module 2: Urban mobility management
- Module 3: Public transport planning
- Module 4: Governance and financing
- Module 5: Environment and health
- Module 6: Safety and social issues
The course is based on UNITAR’s sound adult learning pedagogical principles. Each module includes readings, self-assessment activities and quizzes. Participants also engage in hands-on and collaborative tasks. They have to work on a case study, where they can apply their knowledge practically, as well as to do peer-reviews and participate in group discussions. The learning activities are distributed in such a way to ensure the achievement of the learning objectives in a flexible manner. All course activities are moderated by a high level transportation expert.
The course is open to urban and transportation planners, decision-makers from local governments as well as representatives of service providers (national governments, private sector, NGOs) and international organizations involved in the transport sector worldwide. It is advisable to have prior basic knowledge of urban transport and/or urban planning issues.
A certificate of completion will be issued to participants who achieve a minimum total score of 70%. A certificate of participation will be issued to participants who complete all mandatory activities but achieve a final score inferior to 70%.