Exploring the future of sustainable urban mobility

We sat down with Niels van Dijk, our Global Project Director, Mobility at Haskoning, and Hans Klaren, Mobility Project Director – to explore the trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the sector today. From the rise of active travel and digital innovation to the growing need for integrated transport and master planning approaches. Together, they draw on international experience and regional insights, considering what it takes to design mobility solutions and systems that truly work for people and places.

Q: Over the past decade, the mobility landscape has shifted significantly. How has sustainable urban mobility evolved, and which emerging trends or developments do you find most exciting?

Hans Klaren: I think one of the key evolutions in the mobility sector has been acknowledging that mobility doesn’t exist in isolation. It is a key enabler of urban growth, liveability and economic opportunity. This is obvious in one sense, because roads, cycle paths, railways all connect us to different places – but the ways we create, design and build them hasn’t always been defined by the same connection.

And I think that links the three big trends we’re seeing: more human-centred mobility, data-driven engineering and design, and an increasing focus on sustainability and climate resilience. These trends are marked by a move from isolation to integration – whether it’s using data, understanding and mitigating climate impacts, or delivering mobility that makes people’s everyday lives easier and happier; in the experience of using it and the economic opportunity it connects us to.

What’s exciting about all of this is how we’re seeing these trends converge. In particular, a growing emphasis on integrated master planning that promotes active travel, where smart mobility networks are embedded into the urban environment from the outset, instead of being an afterthought. New cities being built across the Middle East are taking advantage of this convergence to embrace and drive new ideas forward.

Q: You’ve highlighted a growing interest in active travel across the Middle East. What’s driving this shift, and how can cities better integrate walking and cycling into environments traditionally shaped around the car?

Niels van Dijk: I think the growing interest in active travel is shared across the world, but what we see in the Middle East is significant growth of urban cities, paired with entirely new cities being built. This presents two sides to the challenge of developing mobility networks – how do you improve mobility within existing city boundaries and infrastructure; and how, given the chance to start from nothing, do you ensure the best decisions are made from the outset?

National development strategies in the Middle East showcase a desire to embrace and invest in innovative solutions and methods from around the world to address these twin challenges, connecting it to the benefits of liveability, public health and climate resilience. At Haskoning, for example, we have brought our extensive Dutch heritage in cycling to conversations with cities like Beijing – with the Netherlands having decades of experience building safe, coherent and comfortable cycling networks. Many of the principles translate well to Middle Eastern cities when adapted to local climate and social contexts. This includes designing continuous routes, clear wayfinding, shading, protected junctions, and safe crossings, all informed by proven Dutch practices.

Integrating active travel into car-centric environments in any city requires more than an infrastructure-only approach. Certainly there is no one-size-fits-all solution and local contexts are important – for example, e-bikes and similar micro-mobility options are popular in the Middle East as a comfortable alternative in a climate of extreme heat. But it begins with creating traffic-calmed, user-friendly streets (preferably with dedicated lanes), ensuring shade and comfort, and linking routes seamlessly to public transport. Smart traffic management plays a key role too, enabling signals and priorities that protect vulnerable road users and encourage safe behaviour.

Q: Many places today are grappling with rising housing pressures. How can more integrated transport and master planning approaches help unlock new areas for development and support the creation of future neighbourhoods?

Niels van Dijk: When mobility is integrated early in the planning process, it becomes a powerful tool to unlock land and shape high quality neighbourhoods. It’s not just about moving people efficiently, it’s about creating places where people want to live, work, and spend time. It comes back to the mindset shift to being human-centred in projects from the start.

By aligning transport, land use, utilities, and public space design, cities can open up new development areas, reduce dependency on private vehicles, and create walkable, human-scale neighbourhoods with access to essential services.

A key part of this is ensuring that new areas are served by efficient, safe, and well managed transport systems from the start, whether that’s high-quality bus corridors, multimodal streets, cycling networks, or planning for future e-mobility charging infrastructure. Strong traffic management strategies can reduce the need for expensive road expansions, while safety first design creates welcoming streets and public spaces.

Integrated planning helps cities shift from a reactive approach to a proactive one, building neighbourhoods designed around sustainable mobility rather than trying to retrofit it later.