European Cities Leading Urban Mobility
October 01, 2020

Singapore, London, Stockholm, Hong Kong, and Amsterdam are the top ranked cities in the 2020 Urban Mobility Readiness Index compiled by the Oliver Wyman Forum.

They earned these ratings because of infrastructure, innovation, and focus on preparedness.


The research conducted with The Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley analyzes 50 cities across 56 metrics, including regulation, infrastructure, social impact, and the ability to adapt future technologies.

“Many cities around the world were at a tipping point, even before COVID and while we won’t know the true impact on cities yet, the cities that ranked high are in a better position to meet future challenges,” said Guillaume Thibault, an Oliver Wyman partner and one of the creators of the index.

More than half of the top ten cities — Amsterdam, London, Stockholm, Helsinki, Berlin and Paris — are in Europe. Most rely on mass transit, are easily walkable, and prioritize clean mobility as well as safety. They also work with local academic institutions and are well-connected regionally and internationally with dense air and rail networks.

“European cities have a great balance across all the dimensions of the index with the top cities scoring high across most of the categories,” said Professor Alexandre Bayen, Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. “These cities have a richer portfolio of mobility options and infrastructure systems making them more resilient in the face of crisis.”

Asia is home to three of the top ten cities: Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Singapore remains number one partly because of its focus on forward looking traffic management, which includes road user charges with adaptive pricing, the first automated rail system as well as roadways that accommodate self-driving vehicles.

The North America barely makes it into the top ten with New York in the number 10 spot, followed by San Francisco, Chicago and Boston, ranked 11-13.

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