Despite where they are, how many citizens live in them, and their infrastructural contexts, cities across the globe are facing common barriers to increasing sustainable transportation and decreasing emissions when aiming for healthier streets.
To boost sustainable and connected mobility across Europe, the EU brings cities and experts together through grants and projects that address challenges and facilitate exchanges on potential solutions.
Combatting urban pollution
Urban pollution is a shared concern in many countries. Panama City has made significant strides in modernising its public transport system over the past decade. The replacement of the informal and highly polluting ‘diablos rojos’ with the MiBus network, alongside the introduction of the Panama Metro, the first subway system in Central America, has improved safety, comfort, and system integration through a unified, card-based fare system.
Despite these advances, rapid urban growth, congestion, and capacity constraints continue to affect reliability, particularly for commuters from fast-growing peripheral areas. Strengthening data-driven planning, expanding priority infrastructure for public transport, and improving real-time information systems are seen as key steps in advancing a more sustainable and inclusive mobility system.
In Nairobi, public transport is still largely privately operated and, despite strong regulation, struggles with poor service quality, congestion, and high emissions. The dominance of informal operators, combined with ageing vehicles and weak enforcement, has limited progress toward cleaner and more reliable mobility.
As the city explores a transition toward publicly led transport operations, there is growing interest in learning from international peers on fleet modernisation, digitalisation, and governance models that can support a shift to safer, lower-emission public transport.
In Addis Ababa, taxis and minibuses still dominate the system. As Ethiopia’s capital and a city of around 5 million residents, public operators struggle to keep pace with growing demand. A persistent supply–demand gap, combined with heavy congestion, leads to low average speeds and undermines efficient mobility for the city’s rapidly expanding population.
The project is already making an impact all over Europe, so I'm extremely pleased to welcome cities from other continents.
The main public transport operator runs around 1,100 buses across 190 routes, complemented by 100 electric buses managed by the private sector. However, there is still low penetration of technologies such as GPS and intelligent transport systems (ITS) to manage and monitor operations. Weak planning and management further contribute to unreliable scheduling.
Addis Ababa’s mobility makeover
Much of the vehicle fleet is ageing and prone to frequent breakdowns, resulting in unreliable services and short vehicle lifespans. This also contributes to air pollution concerns linked to road transport. Passengers often face long queues during peak hours, worsened by the lack of basic facilities at terminals and stops along the routes.
Against this backdrop, Addis Ababa is seeking support for capacity building, the deployment of transport technologies such as ITS, behavioural training for staff, and strategies to encourage a modal shift towards more sustainable public transport.
Budapest can help with that. The Hungarian city can share how it has improved the efficiency and convenience of public transport by upgrading and using its transport modelling tools to redesign the network in a more data-driven way. This is part of the replication programme of the project UPPER, whose theme is the decline in public transport use and the increasing dependency on private vehicles. The reasons vary across locations.
Tesfaye Habte Ketema, Intelligent Transport System Control and Security Expert, Intelligent Transport System of Addis Ababa, explains, “The Living Labs have a lot of experience with these issues that we can learn from.”
A fresh perspective
Looking ahead, Addis Ababa aims to increase public transport’s modal share, roll out zero-emission vehicles (including more electric buses), and use multimodal route-planning tools to improve air quality and cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with climate-neutral ambitions. The city’s goal is to reduce private car use to no more than 10% of trips while building a stronger network of public transport operators.
To achieve this, Addis Ababa plans to improve service quality through new bus lanes, higher frequencies, better transfer options, multimodal hubs, integrated planning across modes, stronger management structures, and a smart cycle-sharing network. The city is seeking support in three main areas: digitalisation and intelligent transport systems, improving operational efficiency and service delivery, and expanding electric bus deployment in the public transport fleet.
The replication programme within UPPER is built on mutual learning, with European and non-European cities sharing experiences to design sustainable, accessible, and attractive public transport systems suited to their local realities.
“Non-EU cities joining is a reflection that the Upper Living Labs are pioneering examples of sustainable urban transport on the global stage,” says Francesco Iacrossi, Upper Dissemination Manager. “The participation of cities from outside Europe also brings a new twist and fresh perspective to the replication programme.”
Exporting Europe’s public transport know-how
Upper (Unleashing the Potential of Public Transport in Europe) is a Horizon Europe project strengthening the role of public transport as the cornerstone of sustainable and innovative mobility. The project’s 10 Living Labs are implementing nearly 80 on-the-ground measures to get people out of private cars and into public transport.
To take the Living Labs findings to the wider public, Upper has launched a replication programme. Of the 12 participant cities, three are from outside Europe: Addis Ababa, Nairobi, and Panama.
“Upper is an ambitious project,” says Francesco Iacrossi, Upper Dissemination Manager. “The project is already making an impact all over Europe, so I’m extremely pleased to welcome cities from other continents into the replication programme.”
Now, Upper is proving that EU projects are making an impact worldwide. The replication programme will bring take-up cities such as Nairobi and Panama City directly in contact with a Living Lab through webinars, workshops and one-on-one exchanges, also thanks to the precious support and extensive public transport knowledge of the project Coordinator, UITP, as well as project partners Eurocities, EIT Urban Mobility, EMTA and ICLEI.
