We present for your attention the paper "Urban Transport Sector in Ukraine: A baseline report in the context of the War of 2022 and prospects for a green post-war recovery".
The report was written by Ukrainian transport specialists in August-October 2022 based on collected data and direct knowledge from the cities with which we worked or communicated during this year and before.
Our goal was to collect all available quantitative and qualitative information and present it in a structured form in English, to allow interested readers easily learn and understand:
where Ukraine's urban mobility sector stood before the War of 2022,
all possible details on electric public transport: lenths of tram networks, trolleybus networks, data on rolling stock etc.,
what was happening with urban mobility during the first 6 months of the War,
what are the national policies regarding urban mobility,
how green were the first attempts to plan a post-war recovery of the transport sector by our government.
Notes from the Autors:
1) We look at the sector through the principles of sustainable mobility, which means, that we don't analyze the car traffic or congestion too much, instead we focus on public transport. Attention is also given to strategic commitments and mobility documents of Ukraine's cities, to national documents and commitments, to cycling infrastructure, and to international projects active in the field.
2) We try to see and transmit the perspective and the challenges of Ukrainian municipalities, and analyze to which degree they are reflected in the national government's agenda (spoiler: not at all). Unfortunately, we came to the conclusion that there is a big communication and policy-making gap between the local governance and the central government.
3) We believe that the post-war recovery of Ukraine's economy and transport sector should be green, which we understand as being based on the principles of sustainablility and neutral climate impact. If we need to choose between a fast recovery and a green recovery, we should aim for green. Slower but sustaianble is better than faster but not sustainable.
4) We found and explaind that the Sustainable Urban Mobility sector in Ukraine is not receiving any support from the national government or international emergency funds, and this represents serious challenge for survival of public transport and therefore for liveability of our cities during the war and after the war. On the contrary, the national government bodies are dragging the sector down and keep possible local reforms from happening by failing to pass the necessary legislation that Ukraine has committed to pass according to the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.
We apologize for possible imperfections in the paper. It is a hard year. Electricity and internet connection are often not available in the cities of Ukraine, which affects our productivity. Still, we hope this paper will be insightful for the reader, or at least interesting.
We have big plans for 2023 in this field, in cooperation with Ukrainian and international NGOs. Your feedback, ideas, proposals are very welcome.
Thank you for your interest, and thank you to the heroic defenders of Ukraine!
Viktor Zagreba, lead expert of the project and co-founder of Oresund LLC
