Through the ”Future Urban Transport – How to deal with complexity (FUT)” program, VREF invests in research, education and communication for the purpose of contributing new ideas and solutions for the design of sustainable transportation systems in cities. The challenge is to find urban transport solutions that will provide accessibility for the masses while at the same time radically reducing transportation’s negative local and global environmental impacts.

The FUT Program currently has three thematic profiles:

• Mobility and Access in Cities
• Urban Freight
• Change Processes: Governance, Leadership and Financing

Since 2001 the FUT program has created ten Centres of Excellence (CoE) and a number of projects and events worldwide. The research teams are based at universities and research institutes in Australia, Chile, China, France, India, Kenya, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, the UK, and the US, with partners in cities around the world.

VREF engages in activities to dessiminate research findings and to exchange knowledge, such as meeting places and publications through partnerships with universities, institutes, international organizations, foundations and other non-profit organizations. VREF has hosted several FUT conferences in Gothenburg. Other VREF events have been held in Beijing, Berkeley, Cape Town, London, Nairobi, New Delhi, and New York.