Future Resilience of Transport (FUTURENET)

To fully assess the future resilience of the UK transport network it is necessary to take into account the likely technology and infrastructure changes, as well as changes in climate and extreme weather events. Future Resilient Transport Networks (FUTURENET) is a four year research project, jointly funded by the Engineering and Physical Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council as a part of the “Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing Climate” programme, which aims to provide such a vision and tools to assess and plan for the resilience of transport systems in future. FUTURENET recognises that climate change also has an impact on transport, and can be addressed as an engineering dimension derived from the interaction between climate design, weather events and the physical network, and a socio-economic dimension derived from the interaction between weather and climate and the patterns of transport demand. FUTURENET integrates both in assessing the future resilience of the UK transport system. The overall aim of FUTURENET is to help answer the questions: what will be the nature of the UK transport system in 2050, both in terms of its physical characteristics and its usage, and what will be the shape of the transport network in 2050 that will be most resilient to climate change?