The Urban Mobility Seminar, organized as part of the 1st Cities Conference in 2017, opened a space to promote discussion on the role of sustainable urban mobility in achieving the objectives of the Regional Action Plan for the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean (RAP), the New Urban Agenda (NUA), the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. This second Conference of the Cities sought to further this dialogue with a view to promote safe, accessible and sustainable urban mobility in Latin American and Caribbean Cities.   

The importance of urban data has progressively taken a more prominent role in government agendas given the increasing demand to develop evidence based public policy.  However, there is a noteworthy deficit in the data collected related to human settlements. This scarcity of information presents an obstacle for the development of public policies that adequately address the needs of citizens and makes the monitoring and evaluation of policies, programmes and plans challenging. Public policies and plans are often not informed by statistical analysis and may result in inadequate actions to address citizens needs and in the inefficient investment of public funds.

The conference of the Cities II session on Monitoring Urban Mobility in Latin American and the Caribbean Cities, sought to present regional and international experiences of monitoring and reporting platforms and initiatives, promoting the exchange of good practices, and developing technical capacities for monitoring of urban mobility at the city level.  

This session was organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean with the support of Despacio.org.

Session structure and objectives

The objective of the Monitoring Urban Mobility session was to:

Strengthen technical capacities of urban mobility monitoring systems to follow progress in achieving sustainable urban development in Latin American and Caribbean Cities.

The expected results were:

• Dissemination of successful local experiences, instruments and practices that can strengthen urban mobility monitoring systems in the LAC region;
• Deepened knowledge and understanding of the importance of monitoring systems to achieve sustainable urban development in LAC cities;
• Deepened understand the role of monitoring systems in the development of public policy.

PRELIMINARY ROGRAMME

14:30 – 16:00     Session 6: Monitoring Urban Mobility in Latin American and Caribbean Cities:

Session moderation and introduction: Ricardo Jordán, Chief, Human Settlements Unit, ECLAC

14:35 – 14:40     Monitoring then implementation of the RAP and NUA in LAC: Platform proposal

Fiona Littlejohn-Carrillo, Sustainable Development Associate Officer, Human Settlements Unit, ECLAC

¿How is urban mobility being monitored in Latin American and Caribbean Cities?

14:40 – 14:50     Balance de Transporte Justo, a project from the Social Change Laboratory  

• Emilio Berríos, Coordinator, Balance de Transporte Justo, Social Change Laboratory, Chile

14:50 – 15:00     Urban Mobility studies in Havana as a source of data for the elaboration of ‘PMUSLH’

•  Guadalupe Rodriguez, Director of Planning, Havana Provincial Directorate for Transport, Cuba

Urban mobility monitoring tools in the LAC region

15:00 – 15:10     The CAF Urban Mobility Observatory

• Carlos Felipe Pardo, Expert consultant for CAF, Despacio.org

15:10 – 15:20     Alternative methodologies for urban mobility monitoring

• Sebastián Anapolsky, Specialist consultant in urban mobility and transport

International Experiences

15:20 – 15:30     Examples from Europe of urban mobility data collection methodologies

• María Tebar, New technologies and mobility studies, CEREMA

15:30 – 15:40     Satellite imaging and urban mobility monitoring

• Wendy Alison Shahin, Director of Intelligent Transport, Satellite Applications Catapult

15:40 – 15:55     Discussion

15:55 – 16:00     Conclusions