UPPER – Unleashing the Potential of Public Transport in Europe – is a Horizon Europe project running from January 2023 to December 2026.
UPPER aims to strengthen the role of public transport as the cornerstone of sustainable and innovative mobility The project will implement a combination of measures looking to push people out of private cars and to pull them closer to public transport in cities across Europe.
UPPER will work with 10 cities and regions: Valencia, Rome, Versailles Grand Parc – Île de France, Oslo, Mannheim, Lisbon, Leuven, Budapest, Thessaloniki, Hannover region.
Key milestones of the UPPER journey will be increasing public transport uptake by over 30% and user satisfaction by over 25, without leaving anyone behind.
At an operational level, UPPER will implement 84 measures and act on five innovation models to positively influence users’ choices: mindset and culture, urban mobility planning, mobility services ecosystem, road network management, and democratic governance.
The project will adopt an integrated and holistic approach to:
- Ease the cooperation among authorities and operators
- Offer a physical and digital environment to test the measures
- Update the existing Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs)
- Optimise the public transport offer, in line with user needs and patterns
- Seek users’ involvement in the overall mobility decision chain
- Encourage behavioural change in favour of public transport uptake
- Achieve an attractive, efficient, reliable, safe, inclusive and affordable public transport system, as outlined in the Mobility as a Right (MaaR) concept
