History

The International Society for Underground Freight Transportation (ISUFT) traces its origin to a set of 5 international conferences entitled “International Symposium on Underground Freight Transportation (ISUFT)”.

The first International Symposium was held in Columbia, Missouri, U.S.A., in September 1999. The symposium was hosted by the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) and organised by Dr. Henry Liu, director of the Capsule Pipeline Research Center, UMC.

The second International Symposium was held in Delft, the Netherlands on the 28 and the 29th of September 2000. It was hosted by dr. Arjan van Binsbergen of TRAIL Research School and dr. Johan Visser of OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology.

The third International symposium was held and hosted by Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 19-20 september 2002 in Bochum (Germany) under supervision of the Minister-President of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Wolfgang Clement. Professor Dietrich Stein of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum was the organiser of the Symposium

The 4th Symposium was held in Shanghai, China, 2005, organized and chaired by Professor Qihu Qian, Member of National Academy of Science and Engineers, China.

The 5th Symposium was held in Arlington, Texas, 2008, organized and chaired by Dr. Mohammad Najafi, Director, Center for Underground Infrastructure Research & Education, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas –Arlington.

At the conclusion of the 5th Symposium in Arlingon, Texas, 2008, a meeting was held in which the participants decided to establish a permanent organization not only for holding future conferences on underground freight transportation, (UFT) but also for promoting research, development, technology transfer, and utilization of UFT technologies.