Climate-neutral and inclusive communities – Skellefteå

Mobility Hub Toolkit

Nordic Winter Cities

Design guidelines and visual prototypes of mobility hubs in cities in cold climates.

Overview

This Visual Toolkit is developed in 2024 within the “Climate-neutral and inclusive communities – Skellefteå” project. With it, we aim to provide visual prototypes of a mobility hub that is context-driven and specific to Nordic ‘winter cities’ – cities that experience winter conditions for a large part of the year. Read more about the way we understand what is special about these kinds of cities in this article.

We begin with proposing three guiding principles for the design of mobility hubs: intermodality and sustainability, safety and quality of waiting time, and integration of community needs. We then elaborate on essential services such as bike-sharing and design choices such as illumination to exemplify how to ensure those principles in the design of mobility hubs. The mobility modes and services provided by a mobility hub are context-specific and are subject to continuous improvement e.g. with regard to their sustainability. In this Toolkit, the scale and location of the visual prototypes remain generic while the purpose is to showcase a variety of adaptive elements that can be scaled and combined depending on the specific needs of a place where a mobility hub will be located.

Primary Services

In connection with the outlined guiding principles, we further distinguish different categories of primary and complementary services that can be provided in mobility hubs. For primary services, seven categories of services are proposed and described below. Primary services have physical representations in the prototypes and their possible elements are presented and described below. Complementary services are not showcased on the prototypes but are briefly described at the end of the Toolkit.

Category of services

The guiding principle of Intermodality and Sustainability is reflected in three categories of services:

Shared mobility includes active mobility options (e-bicycles, e-scooters etc.) as well as cargo extensions for carrying e.g. groceries and car-sharing services.

Public transport includes bus stops and waiting facilities. Their placement should aim to minimize the walking distance from/to the indoor station space as well as provide visibility from the indoor space to increase safety in cases of low-frequented stations.

Private mobility options refer to the privately owned modes of transport with higher prioritization to be given to parking for active modes and electric cars. Depending on the local parking policies, the number of available spots per mode should be adjusted to incentivize sustainable mobility in the local area.

Two other guiding principles are reflected in four interconnected categories of services. These include play activities, spending time and maintenance facilities, as well as facilities for parcel delivery. Play activities are designed to be seasonally adaptable to enable the use of an outdoor space throughout the year. Spending time facilities refer to indoor waiting time and include vendor spaces for (e.g. food, hairdressers, cafes and other) additional services as well as various seating options. Maintenance includes general waste and recycling bins as well as restroom furniture. Parcel delivery consists of (ID-verification) parcel boxes and drone landing infrastructure.

Outdoor Space Prototype

This part of the Toolkit represents a sample arrangement of services in the outdoor space of a mobility hub. The space with services is shown in summer and winter versions to highlight elements that e.g. offer protection from snow during the winter season. Active mobility parking is placed close to the entrance while drone delivery is located further from residencies to protect them from noise pollution. The two-directional bus stops are placed across from each other in the same part of the street to further densify the passengers’ waiting presence in case of low-frequented stations (e.g. due to the specificity of a local area or time of day).

Indoor Space Prototype

For the design of an indoor space of a mobility hub, this Toolkit sketches out a comfortable space that can ensure the quality of waiting time. This includes sufficient information about timetables and indoor e-bicycle parking at the entrance, followed by restrooms and parcel /rental boxes. A space for charging devices or working and a space for recreation and community use are also added. In the recreational room, we include an adaptive wall that can open up to enable connections with external temporary services such as food trucks.

Description of the Prototype’s Elements

Seasonal Adaptability

Winter conditions and seasonality are influential factors in Nordic winter cities and, respectively, in mobility hubs in such cities. We, therefore, highlight seasonality in the visual prototypes presented in this Toolkit. By showing changes in the surrounding trees, the presence of snow and darkness we aim to provide a holistic and realistic view of the mobility hub in Nordic winter cities. Seasonal adaptability of different elements of mobility hubs can help enable year-round use of their spaces.

Complementary Services

Additional services that do not have a physical representation (and are not depicted on the prototypes due to scale) can be present both indoors and outdoors and can be of vital importance for the mobility hub. They can help to ensure safety, inclusivity, and simplify access to all available services. While not all of them are essential, they can improve the overall experience with a mobility hub and accelerate its integration within a local area.

Overview of possible complementart services

About

Data sources
This Visual Toolkit is based on a data collection process conducted in the scope of the project during 2023-2024. The data sources include documents about mobility hubs developed by Skellefteå municipality and its partners; reports and articles about mobility hubs publicly available online; interviews, observations and workshops conducted in the scope of this project. This includes outcomes of a workshop with local stakeholders from Skellefteå arranged in May 2024 to collect ideas and perspectives of different local actors on what important services can be provided in mobility hubs, what they can look like and what factors need to be considered when designing hubs and their networks. We would like to acknowledge the input of the workshop particiapnts and thank them for contributing their knowledge to this project. Finally, supplementary data collection was made when developing this Toolkit to further motivate the design choices and elaborate on the logic behind them.

Software used to develop the visual prototypes
This Toolkit was created with a 3D model designed and built in Rhinoceros. The rendered images are further edited in Adobe Illustrator and the icons used were designed in Adobe Photoshop. For the invisible services icons, we used open-licensed SVG vectors and icons from SVG Repo.

How to reference this Toolkit
This Visual Toolkit is published under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

When using the Toolkit, please refer to it as follows:
Kralinger, L., Stratopoulou, E., Pereverza, K., Viksten, A. 2024. Mobility Hub Visual Toolkit: Nordic Winter Cities.

When using pictures from this Toolkit, please, refer to the creators as follows:
Leonie Kralinger and Elpida Stratopoulou