VTI turns 50 in Linköping - the move a success factor

A great deal has happened since VTI left Stockholm in 1975 to move to Linköping. New research and collaboration have been added and now there is once again an office in Stockholm, as well as Gothenburg, Lund and recently also in Skellefteå.

“In retrospect, I can say that the move to Linköping was successful. VTI got good, functional premises with all the unique research facilities in one location. Being close to Linköping University has also been very positive for VTI’s development. Overall, I would venture to say that moving the headquarters to Linköping is an important factor that has contributed to VTI's position as an internationally prominent research institute with both broad and deep expertise in transport research,” says VTI's Director General Tomas Svensson.

Let’s take a look back. The decision to move to Linköping was made a few years earlier, in 1971, at the same time as the Riksdag gave the go-ahead to establish the Swedish National Road and Traffic Institute as a merger of the Swedish National Road Institute and the Swedish Road Safety Council.

This gave rise to the abbreviation VTI, which was then the Swedish Road and Traffic Institute and now stands for the Swedish Road and Transport Research Institute (Statens väg- och transportforskningsinstitut). The roots of the organisation are actually considerably older than this, through the Royal Swedish Automobile Club's Road Institute, formed in 1923.

VTI occupied a brand new building in Olaus Magnus Väg in Linköping, which was then located in the middle of the countryside with farms as its closest neighbours. Gradually, the surrounding area was increasingly filled with Linköping University's Campus Valla and Mjärdevi Science Park, as well as industrial and various residential areas.

VTI is still in the same building, which it shares, now as before, with the Swedish Geotechnical Institute (SGI). During the 1970s, the relocation of government agencies from Stockholm to various locations throughout the country began.

The move from Stockholm was not without its challenges. Some specialists chose to stay in Stockholm, but some wanted to leave the big city. They were able to find better housing conditions and found the new location itself attractive. Younger people had an easier time going through the moving process than older people - and it did not lead to more divorces, as some had feared.

VTI in Linköping offered plenty of space for the technical equipment that already existed and for new initiatives. The idea of developing a driving simulator had already existed during the time in Stockholm. The new premises offered space to begin building one, and funding was provided in the late 1970s through the Swedish Board for Technical Development.

VTI's road testing machine from 1943 also made the move and is still in use. The large tyre testing machine located in VTI's yard was added, as was the HVS, Heavy Vehicle Simulator, another type of road testing machine. Just to mention a couple of examples.

The building that VTI is located in is called Terra and was modernised in 2001/2002. Since 2008, the eastern facade has been repainted in a way that the landlord Akademiska Hus describes as a colourful work of art. It was created by artist Jacob Dahlgren, also known for the Traffic Sign Abstraction at the Ullevi junction in Linköping.

The idea is that the colours of the building facade can appear to contrast with each other up close, but from a distance create a spectrum that goes from blue-green through pink-yellow back to blue-green again. Whether you like the colours or not, they can still symbolise the diversity of research that VTI conducts in all areas of transportation and a number of academic disciplines.

Text: Gunilla Rech

Translation: CBG

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