The West of England Combined Authority has been awarded funding from the Department for Transport to trial innovative transport measures as part of the Future Transport Zone (FTZ) Programme. This includes trialling a network of mobility hubs across the region.
A mobility hub is a place that brings together both established and new forms of transport with traveller facilities, information, urban realm improvements, and community and commercial activities. Mobility hubs are flexible and inclusive and may act as both interchanges at mid-points during a journey, as well as destinations in their own right.
By bringing different transport and non-transport services together at the trial mobility hub sites, they intend to make it easier for people to switch between different modes of transport. To help them to understand local issues and opportunities that will help them to shape the trial mobility hubs, they are carrying out site audits with small groups of people in which they hope to capture perspectives from a wide range of people, particularly those for whom the current transport network may present additional barriers, for example:
• women and girls;
• parents with small/dependent children;
• people using wheelchairs or with a mobility impairment;
• people with sight loss or visual impairments;
• members of the LGBTQ community;
• young people;
• older people;
• neurodiverse people
They are looking for people who would be interested in doing the audits.
The site audits will take place in the following locations.
• King Chase Shopping Centre, Kingswood, BS15 8LP on Wednesday 2nd February 12.30-14.00. £25 First Bus/Voi voucher as a thank you for taking part.
• University of the West of England Frenchay Campus, BS16 1GY on Monday 7th February 12.30-14.00 £25 First Bus/Voi voucher as a thank you for taking part.
• Station Road/Church Road, Filton, BS34 7BL on Monday 7th February 14:30 – 15.15. £15 First Bus/Voi voucher as a thank you for taking part.
• Conygre Road, Filton Avenue, BS34 7PA on Monday 7th February 15.45-16.30. £15 First Bus/Voi voucher as a thank you for taking part.
• Gainsborough Square, Lockleaze, BS7 9XA Monday 7th February 17:00 – 18:00. £15 First Bus/Voi voucher as a thank you for taking part.
They will reimburse any travel costs to reach the sites from locations within the West of England boundary and for travel between the sites. Details on how to claim will follow once the site visits are completed, but they ask participants to please retain any receipts and tickets.
There are a limited number of spaces for each site audit and they’re aiming to gather a group of users with diverse perspectives for each site, so once they have received your expressions of interest they will select the groups for each site and send out further details.
Please can you email your expressions of interest with your site preferences, stating any personal or professional perspective (e.g. older person, member of LGBTQ+ community) that you will be able to bring to the group so that they can ensure a range of users are represented at each site visit, by Friday 28th January to jodi.savickas@atkinsglobal.com. You can also email any questions you have.