News

Lithuania’s only port city, Klaipėda, is on the move – transforming from a car-dominated city, into its vision of a liveable city with inclusive and green mobility. Located where the Baltic Sea meets the Danė River, Klaipėda is an industrial hub, with railways connecting the port with the most important industrial regions of Eastern Europe, and shipping lines providing links to the major ports of Europe. Having created an ambitious sustainable urban mobility plan (SUMP) in 2018, Klaipėda is now working within SUMP-PLUS on its implementation pathway, which starts with the city’s vision for 2030, and works backwards, identifying what needs to be done and by when, to make that vision reality.

Within that process, the local SUMP-PLUS team in Klaipėda has been busy carrying out a survey among the city’s public transport users. So far, in the city of 148,000 inhabitants, a large proportion – aprox.1,700 citizens - have participated in the survey, enabling the team to better understand the citizens’ motivations and needs. Such a wide reach, together with local media coverage, has helped spread awareness of both the city’s mobility ambitions and the topic of sustainable mobility in general.

The City of Klaipėda has also recently introduced two new SUMP action plan measures to encourage more use of public transport: firstly the expansion of car-parking fees; and secondly, the promotion of public transport use through activities such as advertising the new high-speed green vehicles. In addition, Klaipėda is planning to install 368 electric vehicle-charging spots by 2030, to encourage e-mobility.

The next steps for Klaipėda involve analysing the results from the latest survey and continuing to promote the vision, step by step:

• On 8 March 2022, Klaipėda is hosting its Mobility Forum, which aims to improve institutional cooperation and participation in transport planning processes, by facilitating communication among stakeholders.
• In April 2022 the City Mobility Integrator event is planned to enables the exchange of views and information between representatives of mobility and education.

Learn more about Klaipėda's city lab.

Learn more about SUMP-PLUS’ stakeholder engagement instruments.