Sustainable mobility and strategies to improve urban planning will be the focus of the CIVITAS Forum 2026, to be held in the northern port city of Thessaloniki on September 15-17.
The annual event is part of the CIVITAS initiative, which brings together cities, policymakers and stakeholders committed to advancing sustainable urban mobility across Europe.
Experts, policymakers, urban planners, academics and mobility professionals from around the world will gather in Thessaloniki to exchange ideas and discuss innovative solutions that can help create smarter, more inclusive and sustainable urban mobility systems.
The theme of this year’s CIVITAS Forum is “Roots & Routes: Moving Forward to Competitive, Connected and Resilient Urban Mobility”.
The forum’s program centers on three key priorities for sustainable urban mobility in Europe: competitive urban mobility, connected urban mobility, and resilient urban mobility. Topics to be covered include ways to implement urban mobility plans, the 15-minute city, city-region connectivity, workforce skills for the mobility transition, climate adaptation and service continuity under disruption, active mobility for healthy cities, inclusive and accessible public transport, tourism mobility and visitor flow management.
Home to some one million residents, Thessaloniki was selected to host the event due to its growing role as an emerging economic, innovation and transport hub for Southeast Europe.
Greece’s second-largest city and the capital of Macedonia combines a rich cultural heritage with an ambitious, forward-looking mobility agenda.
Indicatively, in 2021, the city adopted an ambitious Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan which prioritizes walking and the reallocation of public space through low-traffic neighborhoods and pedestrian routes. The plan also promotes multimodal transport, including electric car-sharing, bike-sharing and mobility hubs, and introduces a city-wide Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) scheme integrating public transport with shared mobility services.
For the forum’s program visit the dedicated CIVITAS website.
