Photo: Ken Straiton/Corbis
Influencing development
“Urbanization and motorization proceed rapidly while physical and institutional infrastructure change slowly. We must participate in the efforts to create reasonable urban environments for all urban dwellers, young and old, rich and poor,” says Arne Wittlöv, Chairman of VREF’s Board of Directors.
The Volvo Research and Educational Foundations want
to participate in the formation of tomorrow’s cities. Urban
transportation systems will need to provide accessibility for
the masses while at the same time radically reducing transportation’s
negative local and global environmental impacts.
Urbanization is occurring at a furious pace and is driven by individuals’ desire for a better life. Cities are beacons of enlightenment. They provide opportunities for employment, education and healthcare as well as social and cultural activities. As standards of living in cities increase, motorization and the local, regional and global environmental problems associated with it increase accordingly. Congestion increases, mobility decreases and economic development slows. “This type of development cannot continue. Another path must be designed. Cities have always been the motor of development, where the city represents opportunity and emancipation. We must participate in the efforts to create reasonable urban environments for all urban dwellers, young and old, rich and poor,” says Arne Wittlöv, Chairman of the Board for the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations (VREF).
VREF’s research program Future Urban Transport – How to deal with complexity, aims to influence the development of transportation systems that are sustainable and accessible for all. The questions and challenges are complex, since issues and subsystems are often closely connected and mutually influence each other. The research that VREF invest in covers traffic safety, energy efficient transportation systems, accessibility, how decisions are made, and how policies are shaped.
“Urbanization and motorization proceed rapidly while physical and institutional infrastructure change slowly,” says Wittlöv. Institutions and decision-making processes are bottlenecks that must be overcome in order for modern technology to be utilized in the best interest of the majority of the population. Barriers and conditions differ from region to region, and the work at the VREF Centers around the world must be based on their specific regional contexts and political processes. “But researchers in this field also have a lot to learn from each other. We see a strength, therefore, in creating a global knowledge network between the different research Centers,” says Arne Wittlöv.
VREF’s overarching vision is to contribute to improving mobility for people in general. “We contribute by supporting research and education about policy development and, to some extent, technological development. We have an opportunity to influence development by steering calls for proposals toward the areas that we have identified as of critical importance for future development. We see VREF’s Centers as investments in a portfolio. It is the composition of the portfolio as a whole that contributes to influencing decisions and formulating a research agenda for urban transportation,” says Wittlöv.
In the future VREF intends to steer calls for proposals even more strongly toward areas that the Board and the Scientific Council believe need further research. Bus Rapid Transport (BRT, transportation systems with networks of buses that utilize designated bus lanes that allow relatively high speeds, simplified ticketing systems, etc.) is one such area. “How a city elects to organize its transportation system has a decisive influence on how the city’s population plans its transportation. A transportation system that is reliable and relatively inexpensive leads more people to choose it over other modes. Such transportation systems provide the city’s inhabitants with the possibility of reaching new workplaces without the city coming to a stand still as a result of increased traffic,” says Arne Wittlöv.
Another area that needs more research, according to VREF, is the economics and financing of urban transportation. Seen broadly, financing encompasses a lot of things; everything from questions of what an effective transportation system means for a city’s economic development, and what principles should govern how income from taxes and fees should be allocated to different types of infrastructure, to how much a bus ticket should be allowed to cost and who should pay for it. A third area where more research is needed is urban freight.
Complex questions
VREF’s research program Future Urban Transport – How to deal with complexity, aims to influence the development of transportation systems that are sustainable and accessible for all. The questions and challenges are complex, since issues and subsystems are often closely connected and mutually influence each other. The research that VREF invest in covers traffic safety, energy efficient transportation systems, accessibility, how decisions are made, and how policies are shaped.
“Urbanization and motorization proceed rapidly while physical and institutional infrastructure change slowly,” says Wittlöv. Institutions and decision-making processes are bottlenecks that must be overcome in order for modern technology to be utilized in the best interest of the majority of the population. Barriers and conditions differ from region to region, and the work at the VREF Centers around the world must be based on their specific regional contexts and political processes. “But researchers in this field also have a lot to learn from each other. We see a strength, therefore, in creating a global knowledge network between the different research Centers,” says Arne Wittlöv.
Influencing development
VREF’s overarching vision is to contribute to improving mobility for people in general. “We contribute by supporting research and education about policy development and, to some extent, technological development. We have an opportunity to influence development by steering calls for proposals toward the areas that we have identified as of critical importance for future development. We see VREF’s Centers as investments in a portfolio. It is the composition of the portfolio as a whole that contributes to influencing decisions and formulating a research agenda for urban transportation,” says Wittlöv.
Networks of buses
In the future VREF intends to steer calls for proposals even more strongly toward areas that the Board and the Scientific Council believe need further research. Bus Rapid Transport (BRT, transportation systems with networks of buses that utilize designated bus lanes that allow relatively high speeds, simplified ticketing systems, etc.) is one such area. “How a city elects to organize its transportation system has a decisive influence on how the city’s population plans its transportation. A transportation system that is reliable and relatively inexpensive leads more people to choose it over other modes. Such transportation systems provide the city’s inhabitants with the possibility of reaching new workplaces without the city coming to a stand still as a result of increased traffic,” says Arne Wittlöv.
Look closely
Another area that needs more research, according to VREF, is the economics and financing of urban transportation. Seen broadly, financing encompasses a lot of things; everything from questions of what an effective transportation system means for a city’s economic development, and what principles should govern how income from taxes and fees should be allocated to different types of infrastructure, to how much a bus ticket should be allowed to cost and who should pay for it. A third area where more research is needed is urban freight.
“We look closely at how researchers will disseminate their knowledge as a basis for all of our funding decisions. We require a close relationship to the region and society that the researchers are working in. We see ourselves not as a research council but, rather, as investors in research, because we want results that will come to practical use. That means that we actively follow our Centers and stimulate contact with users and practitioners,” says Arne Wittlöv.
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2010