Cities are characterized by their ability to provide interactions and opportunities, fundamental to personal and society growth and development, which has justified the intensification of the worldwide urbanization phenomenon. Cities are places where people live, work and move, requiring collective infrastructures, such as the transportation one, to carry out activities and meet their basic needs, including mobility.

They involve a large consumption of resources, impacts on the environment and multiple actors and conflicting interests whose organizational complexity requires planning, management and operation instruments. In this sense, this line of research studies cities and mobility according to an integrated, intersectoral and interdisciplinary concept, which addresses the potential and restrictions of different models of urban development, taking into account: (a) the relationships between the spatial organization of activities, the configuration of transport networks, such as accessibility conditions and urban mobility patterns, as well as (b) the specificities of Brazilian cities, mainly as metropolises, characterized by their social inequalities.

Among these models, two stand out, considering, in both cases, the construction of participatory, inclusive and transparent contexts of analysis and decision that also promote the changes desired by the population. The first model seeks smart cities and mobility, valuing the insertion of technological advances with a predominant (but not exclusive) focus on “efficiency”. The second one is committed to sustainable cities and mobility, highlighting other objectives - in addition to "efficiency,” such as quality of life - associated with "public interest,” with a perspective more directed to the citizen than to the consumer. These two models complement and articulate each other, becoming important references in the development of interdisciplinary research projects, which can be oriented towards conceptual and methodological contributions in the planning, management and operation of the transportation of people and goods, as well as in the use of technology and intelligence servicing more sustainable cities and urban mobilities.