GOLIA launches to support cities in building inclusive, climate-resilient mobility

As the impacts of climate change become more visible and social inequalities persist in how people access and experience mobility, many cities continue to plan their public transport network without proper coordination between levels of government, and with little involvement from the people who rely on it every day. The GOLIA project sets out to respond to these gaps.

Funded by Horizon Europe, the three-year initiative brings together 21 partners, including UITP, to rethink the way mobility is planned, governed, and delivered. GOLIA will focus on three key topics: climate resilience, social inclusion, and governance, to help cities prepare for mobility systems that can withstand environmental, political, and structural disruptions. As heard in the opening remarks at the project’s kick-off in Rome (12–13 June 2025), “GOLIA will not wait for the storm, it will act now and in close cooperation with its partners.”

The approach may sound straightforward: mobility systems that work for both people and the planet. But in practice, it requires cities to step back and reassess how decisions are made, shifting away from purely economic priorities and placing wellbeing, inclusion, and long-term sustainability at the centre.

GOLIA will explore the behind-the-scenes of urban mobility, looking at how different people move, what influences their choices, and how existing data and tools can be used more effectively to support everyday decision-making. It will also take a cross-sectoral approach, integrating expertise from both STEM and the social sciences to design governance tools that are as adaptive as the systems they intend to improve.

To support cities in building more informed and inclusive planning processes, the project will develop a set of tools:

To demonstrate how cities can integrate social and digital dimensions into sustainable mobility planning, the project will test these tools in three partner cities – Florence, Pilsen and Antwerp – each with its own urban mobility context.

Three follower cities – Marseille-Provence (France), Glasgow (UK), and Riga (Latvia) – will engage in peer learning through study visits, stakeholder mapping, and the development of tailored roadmaps, with the goal of supporting replication and local adaptation of successful approaches across Europe.

GOLIA will also contribute to multi-level governance reform by producing a Mobility Smart Governance Handbook with concrete policy recommendations. These will help cities and regions align their mobility strategies with EU-wide goals, including the European Green Deal, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the revised TEN-T Regulation.

UITP brings its ongoing experience from the UPPER project, where the concept of Mobility as a Right (MaaR) is being actively developed and applied. In cities such as Oslo and Lisbon, MaaR is already referenced in local mobility strategies.

With GOLIA, UITP will contribute to the development of a legal and policy framework for MaaR, this means working on addressing legal gaps around digital access, inclusion, and climate neutrality and defining policy messages for institutions.

Also, UITP will support public-private collaboration guidelines, facilitate connections among institutional partners, and contribute to capacity-building activities through the Impact Creation Board and UITP’s global network. It will also ensure that governance models developed under GOLIA are replicable, balanced, and anchored in long-term policy alignment.

GOLIA is born as a response to a fragmented mobility system in need of transformation, to one that is adaptive, democratic, just, and inclusive. By strengthening local governance, encouraging cross-sector collaboration, and guiding smarter investment decisions, GOLIA will equip cities with the tools, knowledge, and frameworks they need to tackle today’s mobility challenges and to prepare for those yet to come.

Follow the project’s journey and stay tuned for what’s next on GOLIA’s LinkedIn page.