The initiative under the National Pathfinder Programme is a training, education and capacity building workshop programme to support Local Authorities and Stakeholders in each of the three Regions to design and implement smart and sustainable mobility projects. A consortium of international and national specialists will be available to Local Authorities and target stakeholders throughout 2023-2025 through a “learning into practice” mentoring workshop series.

The initiative has four primary aims:

• To support Local Authorities and help address shared challenges in the implementation of smart and sustainable mobility projects with local communities;
• To strengthen cross sectoral collaboration, support and leadership for smart and sustainable mobility actions;
• To build capacity for demonstrating and communicating to the public and key stakeholders the positive before and after impacts of sustainable mobility projects occurring across our Local Authorities to encourage good practice replication; and
• To strengthen behaviour change to active travel looking at good practice techniques and interventions, to help achieve our target of a 50% reduction in transport emissions and 500,000 extra walking, cycling and public transport journeys by 2030.

The project was announced in October 2022 by the Department of Transport as one of the successful projects under the National Pathfinder Programme under the theme of engagement and research. The creation of the Sustainable Mobility Academy is one of the first deliverables of the project. The platform will be kept updated and live throughout the Pathfinder Programme and beyond it.