Welcome to our latest newsletter. It’s positive to be able to start by welcoming something, in this case the Department for Transport’s new openness to potential new shared e-scooter trials. This is something we have called for consistently in recent years. When I met with Minister Simon Lightwood recently he made welcome remarks about wanting to work with CoMoUK on shared transport, and said to watch for news about new trials. If anyone wants to chat to us about this, just get in touch. We’re also pleased that the Minister has agreed to record a video introduction to our forthcoming Conference (if you haven’t signed up already, do so below!) where we will be covering all matters shared transport and celebrating our 25th birthday to boot.
Plenty has been happening at CoMoUK itself, so scroll down to get the latest on mobility hubs, two now completed to CoMoUK gold accreditation standard, a brilliant roster of Scottish work, and two great events to boot.
It’s always great to see shared transport initiatives in the real world and talk face to face so I was delighted to be in Birmingham and Edinburgh in recent weeks. We hope to be putting on more such events in 2025, do get in touch if you would like to collaborate on that.
Also get in touch if you’re interested in a pop-up hub from next spring. We have learned so much from our ground-breaking pop-up hubs programme in Scotland about what these hubs can achieve and why.
Next month we have some super news coming up too, but you’ll have to wait until then for that!
Best wishes and chat soon,
Richard Dilks
Chief Executive, CoMoUK
News & insights 🗞️
Mobility Hub Roadshow, Halesowen
It was great to see so many people attending the first CoMoUK mobility hub roadshow hosted with Transport for West Midlands and sponsored by Trueform earlier this month.
We enjoyed informative presentations from TfWM, Trueform and Black Country Transport on the development of the three pilot hubs in Halesowen. And we all then took a great deal from guided tours around their two completed mobility hubs, one adjacent to the bus station at Andrew Road, another embedded in a community centre at Huntingtree Park.
CoMoUK is pleased to announce that these completed hubs have been awarded CoMoUK gold standard accreditation. The Andrew Road hub has new seating and planting as well as a bike share station and EV charging, including for a car club vehicle. The Huntingtree Park hub has a bike share station and is integrated with local facilities and bus services.
Applying for CoMoUK accreditation is free of charge and is a great way to raise the profile of hubs and ensure high standards are maintained.
We are very grateful to operators Co Wheels, Voi, Lime, Beryl and Serco for providing an opportunity to try out a great range of shared bikes, e-bikes, e-scooters and cars.
We look forward to more roadshows in the future, do get in touch if you would like to be involved.
Our second event of the month brought practitioners and policy makers together in Edinburgh to hear of our research work, specifically car share, bike share, e-scooter share, DRT and community transport as well as our pop-up hubs programme and Low Emission Zone work – projects we are very grateful to Smarter Choices Smarter Places for funding.
It was also a great an opportunity to catch up with others and meet a range of stakeholders across Scotland’s shared and sustainable transport community.
Implementing schemes within housing associations can align extremely well with housing associations’ goals such as supporting their tenants’ physical and mental wellbeing, saving them money and meeting sustainability objectives.
The project, included interviewing housing association officers, surveying tenants across the Central Belt of Scotland and speaking to attendees at community events. This project is funded by Smarter Choices, Smarter Places.
Insights into the Digital Demand Responsive Transport sector in Scotland
Another from the Smarter Choices, Smarter Places suite of shared transport reports, this report provides an analysis of motivations, use patterns and social value of DDRT from a users’ perspective.
It finds that Scotland’s DDRT services are used by individuals from diverse backgrounds and that the services are mainly used for leisure trips. Crucially, DDRT trips mainly replace trips that would otherwise be made by car, thereby helping to reduce traffic-related emissions.
DDRT provides a wealth of social, economic and environmental benefits to its users, and to wider society. In order to expand these vital services throughout Scotland, and to improve the DDRT services that are already in place, CoMoUK has set out a number of recommendations outlined fully in the report.
Would you like a pop-up hub in your area?
The CoMoUK pop-up hub project across Scotland has demonstrated their role in testing potential long-term mobility hub and bike sharing locations, and being centrepieces for valuable community activities and engagement which lead to mode shift.
As the project ends in April 2025, CoMoUK is interested in talking to authorities about leasing our two hubs for trying out new locations. There is also the option to procure new, additional hubs. We can also offer a package of CoMoUK support across site selection, logistics, community consultation, engagement activities. That builds upon our experience gained from having pop up hubs on the ground in and around Inverness, Glasgow and the Central Belt.
Come and celebrate CoMoUK’s first quarter century at our annual online conference on Wednesday 4 December 2024.
We will be looking ahead to where the UK should go on shared transport and mobility hubs with the the continued pressure of climate change, cost of living and public health crises and a new UK Government in place.
As the only conference focussing on shared transport in the UK, this is a unique event for sharing innovations between key stakeholders in the public and private sector.
There will be opportunities to specifically learn more about the four conference topics: widening access; reimagining the kerbside; moving to EVs in a sustainable and inclusive way; changing behaviour via shared transport.
"I thought the [DDRT] service when it first started was an excellent idea for rural communities. We do have several older people living here and they have more medical appointments, it also it connects them to other social activities especially if they’re living alone. Then they can hop on the [DDRT bus] and go to various clubs and activities and social things that are offered in the village, which they wouldn’t be able to access otherwise."
