Riga and Pieriga mobility plan

In September 2009 Witteveen+Bos started work on the Mobility Plan and Action Program for Riga and Pieriga for the Latvian Ministry of Transport. The project was to set up a mobility plan for the city of Riga and the surrounding region of Pieriga.

The project area covers 6984 km² and houses more than one million people, which is 47 % of Latvia's total population. Riga has a large seaport and an international airport and is an important hub along international transport routes. The main problems concern planning and management of public transport and the road and rail networks, the limited capacity of Daugava river crossings, a lack of road safety and a shortage of facilities for cyclists and pedestrians.

The plan was based on four themes: traffic engineering, public transport, traffic modelling and other aspects (including the environment, institutional organisation and legislation). The project started off with an analysis of the current situation. The analysis was used to formulate a vision and define objectives for the mobility plan. The third phase consisted of traffic modelling to obtain a transparent picture of the bottlenecks. In the next step three variants for the future traffic and transport system were developed. The variants consist of development plans for all transport modalities, the infrastructure (including the seaport and airport) and the management and organisation of these matters.

Out of the three variants the preferred variant was further elaborated in greater detail and accompanied by a Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA). An action programme that includes measures for the short, medium and long term was based on the preferred variant.