South Africa’s roadmap of action toward sustainable mobility
In 2020, the Sustainable Mobility for All partnership applied its innovative approach for improved public decision making in transport to South Africa, using the set of tools it had developed—Catalogue of Policy Measures, and Selection Algorithm–to generate a country action plan of 31 most impactful policy measures to achieve sustainable mobility. Sustainable mobility is defined as the achievement of four global policy goals: universal (equitable) access, efficiency, safety, and green mobility. This definition is an emerging standard that is increasingly accepted by the international transport community, and is aligned with the Department of Transportation’s National Transport Master Plan 2005-2050 vision of South Africa. During the initial phase of the study, COVID-19 struck unexpectedly, and immediately impacted transport systems globally. The pandemic highlighted a need to upgrade several tools to make the resilience of transport systems a more prominent component of the innovative approach. The Catalogue of Policy Measures was expanded with the addition of 12 new measures to respond to this public health crisis, and new criteria were added to the selection algorithm to sort out policy measures on resilience.
