UFRJ Campus: A City of Innovative Mobility

In 2009, the general development plan for the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Plano Diretor UFRJ 2020 in Portuguese) was approved for the period between 2009 and 2020. A significant effort was made to incorporate in-house innovative solutions as much as possible. Such strategy was supposed to (1) directly benefit the University with solutions created within its own research programs; (2) serve as a privileged showroom of its potential contributions to the community; and (3) pioneer applications that may be adopted in urban areas in the near future. UFRJ’s main campus is located in an island, with an area of circa 5.2 km², 5 km in length and 1 km in width. Its daily population is estimated in 60,000 persons, including students, faculty, technical, administrative and support workers, and visitors. More than 25,000 vehicles circulate every day along its main avenues. Besides the university buildings and installations, 15 other research centres are also located in the campus. These features provide the ideal conditions for UFRJ’s main campus to become a lively and efficient laboratory of a smart city of the future. The synergy generated by the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary knowledge can be maximised by turning the Plano Diretor UFRJ 2020 into reality. Based on such premises, an occupation plan was conceived. The main idea was to transform the University Campus in part of the city creating urban spaces, integrating internal disciplinary areas and the University with the urban fabric nearly. Unfortunately, due to recent political unrest and a deep economic crisis that currently plague Brazil, the implementation of a significant part of the plan has been postponed. Nevertheless, the internal mobility project, featuring a Magnetically Levitated (MagLev) vehicle is going forward. This paper describes the development of the project, known as MagLev-Cobra, since the proof of its concept in the year of 2000, until its final implementation, due to 2020. The frame of technology development, established by NASA and known as Technological Readiness Levels (TRL’s), will be used as reference. The cooperation between various university departments and companies, some of them spin-off incubated companies, will be stressed, as an example of the positive impacts from cooperative work in research, teaching, innovation and technological development.