TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY: 20 YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN BELGIUM

Transport is fundamental to our economy and society. Mobility is vital for the internal market and the quality of life of citizens as they enjoy their freedom to travel. Transport especially enables economic growth and job creation. Mobility of goods and people is a crucial factor in the competitiveness of European industries and services. Plans for the future of the transport sector must therefore take account of its economic importance and a modern transport system must be sustainable from an economic and social as well as an environmental viewpoint.
Following these principles the Belgian Government supported over the past 20 years scientific research in the field of Transport and Mobility contributing to achieve significant outcomes. Indeed, within the Belgian Federal Government's jurisdictional framework, the Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) implements national and international multiannual research actions with a view to consolidate Belgium's scientific and technological potential (FEDRA). The Belgian Federal Science Policy Office is in charge to instigate suitable research actions covering among others research projects on Transport and Mobility (TandM).
Since the BELSPO funding for transportation and mobility researches has been continued through numerous research actions, the scientific basis for supporting the federal policy in T&M areas has been maintained.
Now, after 20 years of BELSPO research programs covering TandM areas, BELSPO now aims at presenting an overall overview of the transport and mobility research projects they financed during the last two decades. Two research groups were mandated by BELSPO to jointly achieve this objective: the research group MOBI-Mobility, Logistics and Automotive technology research centre, department MOSI-Transport and Logistics of Prof. Dr. Cathy Macharis from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the Transportation Research Group (GRT) of Prof. Philippe Toint from the University of Namur (FUNDP). The report is part in this exercise an outcome of this mandate.
A first part presents the state of the art of the 20 years research actions and projects in the field of Transport and Mobility. The next chapter will sketch the global and specific BELSPO objectives as well as the EU White paper 2011 ones. The following section then resumes the accomplished and/or expected results of the BELSPO TandM related research programs (period: 2001-ongoing).
Furthermore, Chapter 5 will then show the categorisation analysis of the research projects that has been developed ad hoc for this study, applied on two time frames: 1991-2000 and 2001-2010. The succeeding chapter will then show the results of the external assessment undertaken through a web-survey by the projects promoters.
Finally, the last part of the report will be devoted to some comments putting the results obtained into perspective the accomplished researches and especially highlighting the challenges and recommendations for the upcoming future TandM research programs.