The City of Inverness area joined the eHUBS project earlier this year as a result of the project re-capitalisation. Inverness is represented by HITRANS the regional transport partnership for the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. HITRANS covers five local authority areas which make up a land area a little larger than Belgium. While our region makes up 40% of Scotland’s landmass it is home to only 10% (500,000 people) of the population.
In Inverness HITRANS will use their recently launched mobility as a service platform GO-HI to digitally gather together as many transport options as possible within Inverness’s city region.
HITRANS launched GO-HI in June delivering a Region wide, multi-modal journey planning system using real-time data that offers account-based payment available to all users for all participating mobility options. The benefits of the Platform include improved awareness of sustainable and active travel and to ease planning, booking and paying for integrated journeys. Our hope is that this will provide those who interact with the platform with an improved travel experience and reduce their need to travel by car. Once downloaded, the app helps users find mobility choices in 3 ways making it very easy for people to search for the transport options they need either by searching through mobility nearby, multi modal smart search, or by specific mode of choice. The features of GO-HI will be extended to include the option of finding mobility points and finding detail on the modes available at these HUBS.
Where GO-HI will bring services together in a digital Hub that allows services to be planned and paid for, the eHUBS project will allow transport services to be brought together physically by delivering the mobility hub concept to Scotland’s most northerly city.
HITRANS are committed to deliver at least four eHUBS through our work in the project but hope to extend this to as many as 9 eHUB locations. The eHUBS will offer a range of mobility choices including some or all of the following: bus, eBike, eCargo bike, eCar Club, EV Charging rail, folding bike dock and cycle parking. Working with stakeholders and local partners HITRANS are finalising sites for the eHUBS and will use guidance developed for our partners at SESTran through their work in the Share North NSR project.
HITRANS also attended the recent eHUBS Academy in Bergen which provide an inspirational environment to learn from others who have already delivered Mobility Hubs and to understand what works in using the Mobility Point to stimulate re-moding to more sustainable travel options.
