A roadmap for the implementation of mobility hubs to support citizens toward

Abstract

As more than half of the world's population now lives in cities, our cities are becoming increasingly crowded. This comes with an increase in mobility in these areas. The increased mobility causes an increase in air- and spatial pollution, which is primarily caused by private cars.
Multimodal travel, which includes public transportation and shared mobility, offers an alternative to private cars. This multimodal travel is supported by mobility hubs. They serve as physical locations that provide a variety of shared modalities, as well as a network of nodes connecting various mobility modes.

Buurthubs are a type of mobility hubs introduced in Amsterdam as part of the eHUBS European project. Buurthubs is a pilot project led by the Amsterdam municipality's Buurthubs team. As the end of this pilot approaches, the municipality wants to determine the next steps for implementing these hubs in the future.
During the discover phase of this thesis, Buurthubs and the challenges they face, as well as their broader context, were discovered. This was accomplished through literature research and a series of meetings with the Buurthubs team. A user research was conducted to understand the users' needs regarding the use of shared modalities. Next, during the define phase, the three following challenges were chosen to narrow the scope of this thesis: the accessibility of the hubs, both physically and digitally, the availability of modalities in the hubs, and user behavior change toward shared mobility. These challenges serve as the foundation for the roadmap, which is the thesis's design goal and end result. This roadmap was created and validated in collaboration with the Buurhubs team. The roadmap outlines a future vision as well as the various steps, actions, and developments required to achieve that vision.
The roadmap is delivered in an interactive format to increase its usability and readability for future municipal team members who will work on the hubs' implementation. In addition, a card set was created for a physical implementation of the interactive component. The roadmap's goal is to aid in the future implementation of mobility hubs in order to achieve more sustainable travel.