Sustainable mobility means keeping the ability of people to travel and supply goods in a way that balances environmental and socio-economic aspects and aims at the reducing of negative impacts on environment. The aim of this research is to study how the mobility governance is built and particularly governed in sustainability understanding aspects in urban municipalities in Latvia, using the case of Valmiera town. In the scope of this step-by-step complementary study different transportation modes have been studied with special emphasis put on the necessary application of socio-ecological system and stakeholder participation principles, and, particularly, governance instruments design and application -all six main groups of instruments and their complementary application for urban sustainable mobility. The research has been carried out employing both research-and-development framework and case study research methods, allowing to provide integrative contextual analysis of the particular sustainable mobility subject in the chosen urban area, including document analysis, semi-structured deep interviews with each stakeholder group representatives, household proenvironmental behaviour questionnaire and structured observations. Also, the development planning process was studied and in particular the case of Valmiera Transport development program development and its impact on environment assessment. The research allowed drawing conclusions on the urban sustainable mobility governance aspects in Valmiera and for Latvia municipalities in general. The future developments should include the joint action plan that would foresee the cooperation and implementation of integrative action between the different transport sectors, policy makers, and relevant authorities, as well as sectorial and inter-sectorial policies planning. These documents should be based not only on detailed and professional evaluation of the transportation aspects in the municipality, but to be based on social-ecological systems governance understanding and application, subsequently, including also on evaluation and modelling of transport related environmental issues such as air pollution and environmental noise etc. in order to manage basic challenge for sector-based planning system and special integration of transport planning and environmental planning.

In order to foster sustainable development in Valmiera, the city municipality is in the process of developing an environmental communication strategy. It is being developed with the Research & Development methodology to make it a practical communication guidance documents for all its target groups. The research is going to prove that using this method of developing the target groups of the strategy will become the stakeholders of the strategy within the process of its development. Both the case of Valmiera developing its environmental communication strategy and the collaboration experiences of Latvian Eco-Schools show that collaboration communication is a practical necessity in order to make a functioning environmental governance that leads to sustainable development of a given territory. This study shows examples of networking modes and instruments.

The research on environmental communication (EC) development framework, actually, on development of the whole set of its complementary instruments – environmental information, education, public participation and pro-environmental behaviour as according to the Collaborative and Action Oriented Communication (CAOC) model (Ernsteins, 2016), has been performed at the local governance level and summarizes experiences of managing environmentally sound Latvian municipalities during the last decade. Also a case study was conducted for one specific municipal-lity - Valmiera city municipality, aiming to establish EC system, where CAOC communication model has been purposefully applied when EC specialist position was introduced (2012), and, particularly, since the statutory Municipal Development Program (2014) and the voluntary Environmental Declaration (2015) have been approved by the City Council.

Nowadays considering that cycling as a widely increasing daily transport mode is becoming more popular and also more publicly required among all kinds of interest groups of our society, municipal policies and practical activities for local cycling developments are already steadily growing and will be a substantial part of municipal statutory development planning in Latvia, too, and that needs modern adaptive governance application and must be properly integrated within necessary sustainable municipal mobility approach. The study starts with an overview of the municipal cycling governance developments in Latvia as the aim of this research is to study the municipal cycling governance building frame, via the complementary set of cycling governance instruments application in terms of their development, implementation and impact evaluation – political and legal, institutional, planning, economic, infrastructure and also communication instruments. As the model’s case study area, Valmiera township municipality (case of medium and small size town municipalities in Latvia) was chosen, where our sustainable mobility studies have been step-wise continuing from 2016, particularly participatory documenting the cycling mobility development and its governance as sub-system of municipal mobility/transportation governance. The research methodologies applied included both research-and-development framework, being realized in active collaboration with municipal administration, and, case study research, allowing to provide integrative contextual analysis of the case phenomenon, including document studies, infrastructure observations with photo documentation, followed by semi-structured in-depth interviews with whole set of the main stakeholders. The study highlights direct necessity of the particular cycling mobility governance system approach understanding and adaptive application, based on three governance dimensions (governance content, stakeholders and instruments). Besides social-ecological system as governance content dimension approach and stakeholders’ participation as governance stakeholders’ dimension approach, also and particularly, not only to use usually emphasized infrastructure planning, but further design and complementary use of all groups of traditional governance instruments, also additionally developing adaptive governance based disciplinary/sectorial cycling mobility instruments, esp. whole set of cycling communication instruments (information, education/training, participation, pro-cycling friendly behaviour). This triple governance dimensions’ model and principle as well as action policy recommendations elaborated may be used by the other local municipalities starting to expand cycling mobility.

Cycling and general sustainable mobility has become a topical issue around Europe, and gradually also in Latvia, including Valmiera – a medium size town, which is a research-base for this study where the governance and development of the municipal cycling infrastructure is analysed. The rapid growth of cycling in Valmiera not only highlights some deficiencies in urban infrastructure developments, but also reveals the management problems: the expectations and needs of users of different means of transportation and also pedestrians are not met. Looking towards solving various cycling development issues, it is necessary, first of all, to develop an understanding of system’s approach and the systemic governance of the cycling infrastructure. The urban transport/mobility system must be developed as a whole, integrating cycling mobility in it as an independently and continuously developing component, promoting a process of cooperation between all parties involved. Thus, to facilitate the cycling mobility of inhabitants in Valmiera, the involvement/participation of all the interested parties shall be pro-actively communicated – informed, educated/trained, pro-cycling behaviour encouraged. During this integrative case study, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied complementary: analysis of documents, infrastructure observations in the town with photo documentation, survey of inhabitants, also in-depth semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. Additionally, a participatory observation was conducted through participation in cycling activities, forums, working groups, etc., elaborating suggestions for the municipal planning document - Transport Infrastructure Development Concept of Valmiera.