Productivity, pleasure and pace: rethinking travel time use in the gothenburg public transport system

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NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism Oskar Simann

in the field of study: Urban Development (07.04.04)

academic programme: Advanced Urban Design

Productivity, pleasure and pace: rethinking travel time use in the gothenburg public transport system

MASTER'S DEGREE

Reviewer: Hans Arby

Supervisor: Artur Shakhbazyan

perception spent transport travel

Moscow

2018



Table of contents

Part 1: Project Brief

1. Why?…

2. What?

3. Where?

4. How?

5. When?

6. Scale

Part 2: Project Research

1. Introduction

1.1 Opportunity statement

2. Definition of territory

2.1 Gothenburg

2.2 The hub

3. Main research

3.1 Public transport in Sweden

3.2 Chosen hubs

3.2.1 Marklandsgatan

3.2.2 Brunnsbotorget

3.2.2.1 Consequences of the city's proposal

3.2.2.2 Current community

3.2.3 Stenpiren

3.3 Site testing

3.3.1 Method

3.3.2 Marklandsgatan

3.3.3 Brunnsbotoget

3.3.4 Conclusions of site testing

4. Reference list

Part 3: Project Proposal

1. Introduction

2. Brief for each hub

2.1 Brunnsbotorget

2.2 Marklandsgatan

3. Project description

3.1 Brunnsbotorget

3.1.1 Opportunity

3.1.2 Stakeholders

3.1.3 Social gathering spaces

3.2 Project proposal Brunnsbo

3.2.1 Placement

3.2.2 Design

3.2.3 Use

3.2.4 Conclusion

3.3 Marklandsgatan

3.3.1 Opportunity

3.3.2 Placement

3.3.3 Strategy for interaction

3.3.4 Proposed activities

3.3.5 Curation of features

3.3.6 Conclusion

4. Further implications

4.1 Prototypical projects

4.2 Conclusions



Part 1: Project Brief

Productivity, Pleasure and Pace

Rethinking Travel Time Use in the Gothenburg Public Transport System

Final Project by Oskar Simann

“Space does not need the screens and sensors of the internet of things to make its stiff arrangements dance. It is already dancing.”

-Keller Easterling, Medium Design (2017)

1. Why?

Despite the immense technological advancement that has occurred in transport over the past 100 years, the time people spend traveling has stayed roughly the same. It seems like the acceleration of speed has made us travel longer distances rather than fewer hours. It is impossible to know, but not unreasonable to assume, that upcoming technological breakthroughs, like autonomous vehicles, electrification, and the internet of things, will have a similar effect on the mobility of the future.

Travel time is foremost a planning question, not a technological question. The focus for the planner should lie, not on travel time alone, but rather on travel time use. Today, time spent in transit is in most cases neither productive nor pleasant. It is simply waiting time. If we accept that technological advancement doesn't automatically lead to shorter travel time, we can instead focus our efforts on enhancing the traveling experience.



2. What?

The aim of this project is to shift the time spent in transit towards productivity and pleasure. A key component will be to transform the perception of time spent in transit from stolen time to time that the user experience as their own.

Productivity should be introduced into the transport system in such a way that it becomes a natural extension of the workspace. What does it mean to be productive in the transport system? What ways are there the be productive? How can transport make people spend less time at the office?

Pleasure should be introduced into the transport system in such a way that travel time becomes a natural part of what users consider as their leisure time. What more than being on your phone does pleasure and leisure in transport entail today? What else do people want to do when they are commuting? How does traveling relate to public life?

Pace, already the most integral part of transport, will act as a reference to the other two concepts. Introducing new qualities into travel inevitably creates questions regarding the role of pace in traveling. How much are we willing to sacrifice in pace if the journey is productive and/or pleasurable enough? And why are we hurrying in the first place?

3. Where?

The main focus will lie on the hubs, the important transport nodes where several modes of transportation meet. At a time when everyone is focusing on the technologies to come, this project reaches for the powers of space. Keller Easterling states in Medium Design (2017) that “...even at a moment of digital ubiquity and innovation, space may be an underexploited medium of innovation with the capacity to make other information systems dumber or smarter.” The aim is to make the public transport system smarter by exploring the hub as a medium.

The hub is absolutely vital to the functionality of the system as a whole. It is where the person coming from the outside first interacts with the city and the place where people from different parts of the city, with different backgrounds, meet. The transfer from one mode to another is also the place where users of public transport feel that their time is wasted the most. People's perception of transit, in general, will change for the better if these hubs can be redesigned in such a way that they become useful, fun and connected.

The project will be taking place in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. Gothenburg is already a mobility knowledge center due to the headquarter of Volvo and the technological university Chalmers. The city is also of a scale and level of organization that makes this kind of project feasible.

Two transport hubs have been chosen as models for the project proposal, Brunnsbotorget and Marklandsgatan. Brunnsbotorget is currently not an important transfer hub but is identified in the Gothenburg transport plan for 2035 as a place where several modes of transport will converge. Marklandsgatan, on the other hand is already an important, but dysfunctional, hub, where many of the buses coming from the southern suburbs connect to tram services. Despite it being a place with long waiting times, it offers no possibilities for entertainment or work.

4. How?

The aim is to develop a strategy for how productivity, pleasure and pace can coexist in parallel, sometimes separately and sometimes interchangeably, with the main goal to improve the overall travel time use in the Gothenburg public transport system.

The concept will be developed with a modular approach. The interventions will be of a flexible nature that takes advantage of existing infrastructure and adds value. The modular solutions should be flexible in terms of functionality over time.

An approach of conscious ambiguity will be developed and adopted. The aim is to blur the edge between the different functions that will be introduced through the project, creating an atmosphere of flexibility and a necessity for negotiation.

5. When?

The proposed time frame for this project is for it to be implemented immediately. It uses the current state and the available plans for the chosen hubs and draws conclusions that are of general value for the city as a whole.

With that said, the project should have the future in mind. The reason behind working with modular and flexible solutions is for the interventions to adapt to different time cycles. It should be adaptable for behavioural changes and use over the span of a day, for seasonal changes, but also for changes over larger time spans due to possible future developments.

6. Scale

The project will work with two different scales simultaneously. Firstly, it works with the scale of the transport hub. A relatively small spatial component within the city, with the main characteristic of being a place where several modes of transport converge. Although being a defined area its arms, the transport lines, are reaching out within and beyond the city limits; making the hub's area of influence much larger than its actual size.

Secondly, the project will focus on the scale of the citywide network, of which each hub is a node. The aim is to develop a strategy or a design code for how to implement the ideas developed around productivity and pleasure on hubs around the city. Each node in the network will have its own unique character but will be connected through a recognisable design approach.



Part 2. Project Research

1. Introduction

1.1 Opportunity Statement

The transportation field has experienced a tremendous technological evolution over the past 200 years. The advancement of cars, trains and other motor driven vehicles have allowed us to travel much further, much quicker. The average daily distance traveled per person in Sweden increased from 4 km per day in 1930 to 45 km per day in 2010. (Frдndberg, L., & Vilhelmson, B., 2014)

What is interesting in this case is that despite this immense technological advancement the travel time budget, i.e. the amount people on an aggregated level spend on traveling per day, has not changed. The travel time budget has, again on an aggregated level, stayed around 70 minutes per day. (Schafer, A., 2000). It seems like increased speed in transportation has lead us to travel longer distances rather than shorter time. This is an interesting fact to have in mind when politicians, planners, and entrepreneurs are trying to sell new solutions as a way to give people more time for other things than traveling.

We once again find ourselves living in a time that promises a lot of innovation in transport. In recent years, research institutes and consulting firms have produced an abundance of reports that are trying to predict the disruptions that new technologies, such as electrification, autonomous vehicles, and the internet of things, will have in the transport market. (Atkins, 2015; DeLoitte, 2016; MacKenzie, 2016) Another example is the idea of the Hyperloop, i.e. trains that are supposed to run through vacuum tunnels at supersonic speed. The company Hyperloop One even has the slogan “We're not selling transportation, we're selling time”.

Is Hyperloop One really selling time? Or are they, just like previous technological advancements, rather selling the possibility to commute longer distances? We cannot know for sure but looking at the experience we have of the lack of change in the travel time budget over the last century it is not unreasonable to assume that upcoming technologies might not disrupt the travel time budget either.

This raises interesting questions regarding the role of the planner in the future development of transport. If we acknowledge that faster vehicles do not directly lead to less travel time, it gives us the possibility to instead focus on how the travel time is used. This project aims to try to improve the overall travel time use in Gothenburg by introducing the concepts of productivity and pace into the transport system.

Fig. 1, Lindelцw D. (2018)

2. Definition of territory

2.1 Gothenburg

The research and project will be taking place in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. Gothenburg is a city of approximately 567.000 people. The Gothenburg urban region has just under one million inhabitants. (SCB, 2017) The city, which is situated on the west coast of Sweden, is home to the Volvo headquarters and to the technological university Chalmers. Due to this Gothenburg has become somewhat of a center of knowledge in the transport field and has seen several pilot programs testing new technologies over the past few years. (ElectriCity & UbiGo, among others)

2.2 The hub

Gothenburg city authorities released a report in 2017, called Next Stop 2035, that outlines larger strategies for how to meet the transportation needs of the next 20 years. As a part of the development of the report, the city conducted a large survey, looking to understand what the inhabitants actually want from the public transport system.

One interesting finding of the survey is that, while people understand that it is necessary to have to change vehicle during some trips, they still find the time spent at transit hub to be the most wasted time of the trip. (Survey, Next Stop 2035, 2017) Therefore, in this research and project, the main focus will lie on the transport hub.

According to the above-mentioned survey, respondents want “A waiting shelter that actually protects against wind, rain and snow should be the top priority. Good lighting, better signage of bus stop locations and more and better information boards are also important. Proximity to life and movement, service, shops or cafes are requested to create security.” (Survey, Next Stop 2035, 2017, p.6)

At a time when everyone is focusing on the technologies to come, this project reaches for the powers of space. In the quote from Medium Design (2017) cited in the beginning of the brief, Keller Easterling states that, in a digitally obsessed age, space might be an undervalued asset to work with. In light of this, the hub is an interesting medium to design. Is it possible to radically transform the transport system and people's perception of it, only by reprogramming the transport hubs?

The hub is important as a typology since it, together with road and rail infrastructure, constitutes the static part of the transport system. While transport is all about moving people and things, the hub stays in its place. For people coming into the city, the hub also becomes the first place of interaction and therefore an important part of people's perception of the city. The hub also often connects spatially segregated parts of the city, and thus also connects people that otherwise do not meet. This in combination with the perception of time in transfer between vehicles being wasted, gives the hub potency and relevance.

Fig. 2 The hub's position in the larger context of the project

3. Main Research

3.1 Public Transport in Sweden

Fig. 3 (Svensk Kollektivtrafik, 2014) Fig. 4 (Svensk Kollektivtrafik, 2016)



Fig. 5 (Svensk Kollektivtrafik, 2014)Fig. 6 (Svensk Kollektivtrafik, 2014)

It is hard to paint a picture of an “average” public transport user. Public transport is not like a specific customer good that has a specific target group. Public transport is for everybody. With that said, there are certain trends for who uses public transport in Sweden.

Firstly, a public transport user is more likely to be young than old. (Fig. 4 & 5) Public transport holds a market share of 63% in the age category 15-19, while it only holds a mere 20% among 45-64-year-olds. Data also shows that the knowledge of how to actually go from one specific place to another decreases with age. (Fig. 6).

Secondly, a public transport user is slightly more likely to be a woman than a man. 57% of passengers of public transport in Sweden are women (Fig. 3) and public transport holds a market share of 30% among women. The market share for men is 23%. (Fig. 4)

From this data, I have identified two main target groups for this design project. Firstly, it is young people, 15-25, which is the group that is currently overrepresented in public transport. Improving their journey will have the largest impact on the overall travel time use in the transport system. The second group is the older age categories, 45-75. These are people that are less bound by the “life puzzle”. (Svensk Kollektivtrafik, 2014) Their kids have likely moved out which frees up capacity to transform car-based journeys into public journeys. The biggest challenge will be to figure out how to better inform older people on how to travel publicly since it seems like they over the years have lost their confidence and therefore chooses other means of transportation.

One important thing to note is also that the usage of public transport in general is increasing in Sweden. The market share increased from 19% in 2010 to 23% in 2014. (Svensk Kollektivtrafik, 2014)

3.2 Chosen Hubs

Two sites, two transport hubs, have been chosen to act as case studies for the testing of implementation of the ideas carried out in this project. The chosen sites are Marklandsgatan and Brunnsbotorget. The sites are described more in detail below. A third site, Stenpiren, which is a newly developed hub, has been used as a reference point.

The sites have been chosen due to a few different characteristics. Firstly, both of the sites are situated just at the edge, one to the north and one to the south, of what would be considered the inner city. This makes them interesting since they act as the first encounter for commuters coming into the city. Their position just at the edge gives them long fingers reaching out in the periphery of the city and beyond. What, more exactly, those fingers look like is described in more detail below

Secondly, these sites are chosen because they are different. Marklandsgatan is a well-established transit hub but it is completely isolated from its immediate surrounding. It is merely a place for transfer. Brunnsbotorget, on the other hand, is not currently a transport hub but is in the transport plan for 2035 set out to become one in the coming decades. This site also has a community connected to it. People who live and spend their lives at this site. This difference in configuration makes for different design solutions being developed and, in the end, it could make the project more relevant and scaleable to the rest of the city.

Thirdly, these sites are partly chosen because I have a personal relationship with them. I grew up in a suburb south of the city and transferred buses at Marklandsgatan every day through high school. I know what it is like to have to wait there for 45 minutes. I also have an apartment at Brunnsbotorget, and I am therefore a part of the community that is present around that site. Choosing sites that I have a subjective relation to, of course, has its risks. It could lead to a lack of objectivity when researching them. But for this project, which is a relatively short one, it has been a huge advantage.

Fig. 7 Aerial photo of Gothenburg with the two sites

3.2.1 Marklandsgatan

Fig. 8 Two systems connected at Marklandsgatan

Marklandsgatan is a public transport hub, situated approximately 3 km south west of Gothenburg city center. It is a transit point, connecting the express buses coming from the southern suburbs, with the city trams and buses.

Apart from the fact that it is a transport hub, there is no obvious spatial or programmatic reason to place a transport hub at Marklandsgatan. It is not an urban center and has very few commercial or public functions other than transport. There is a Pressbyrеn (a Swedish newspaper shop) and a low-end fast food restaurant placed in at the hub, and further away across a larger road, there is a gas station, a grocery store and a few other small-scale shops. Marklandsgatan is also located fairly close to a several of Gothenburg's largest and most used sport and exercise facilities.

Compared to Stockholm, where it is safe to assume to find some kind of urban center situated at the major transport hubs, there is no such correlation in Gothenburg. The placement of the main hubs, and also of bus and tram stops, in general, seem fairly random in relation to the configuration of the city. In addition to this, the hubs have not, in most cases, managed to generate any urban activity after their construction. (Lindelцw, 2018)

While growing up I have personally experienced using Marklandsgatan as a place of transit. I grew up in one of the southern suburbs of Gothenburg and went through Marklandsgatan every day on my way to and from high school. I have more than once missed the bus by a minute on a Sunday and had to wait for an hour for the next one. Therefore, I know how ill-equipped it is to facilitate that kind of waiting and I can see a clear potential to enhance the possibility to have a productive or pleasurable stay at Marklandsgatan.

The hub has a high flow of people. On an average weekday, it has 17.177 passengers. Over the day it follows a pretty standard commuter pattern with a sharp peak when people are going to work in the morning followed by a more spread peak in the afternoon when people are going home.



Fig. 9 Passengers per hour, Monday-Thursday, Data: Vдsttrafik (2017)

Marklandsgatan connects two different types of public transport. Firstly, it is the first stop in the city for the express buses coming from the southern suburbs and secondly, it is the starting/end-point for the city buses and the trams of the western part of Gothenburg. These two different areas that are connected through Marklandsgatan have very different socioeconomic composition. As seen in figure 3.2.3, the southern suburbs have the highest average income in Gothenburg, while several of the areas in the western part have some of the lower. Comparatively, the area Billdal has an average annual income of 450.095 SEK / year, while the same number for Hцgsbo is only 103.001 SEK / year, less than a fourth of the prior.

This difference can also be seen in the results of the regional elections of 2014. In Billdal, the right block (M, L, C, Kp) got 75,2% of the votes, compared to 15.4% for the left block (S, V, Mp). In Hцgsbo the right block got 16,6%, while the left block got 62% of the votes. (Valmyndigheten, 2014)

The income distribution in combination with the election result paints a clear picture of two very different areas. Billdal is an upper- or upper-middle-class area while Hцgsbo is a working-class district. It is safe to say that in a segregated city like Gothenburg, people with backgrounds this different do not have many places where they meet. Marklandsgatan, with its isolated nature, is therefore a unique opportunity for a common ground between otherwise segregated people. Due to its lack of activity and space for interaction, this opportunity is not being utilized today.



Fig. 10, Income distribution of Gothenburg, Statistiska Centralbyrеn (2011)

3.2.2 Brunnsbotorget

Brunnsbo is a neighborhood consisting predominantly of housing built in the mid-60s. Brunnsbotorget (eng. the Brunnsbo Square) is the neighborhood's square with a few restaurants, a grocery store, a flower shop and a cafй. The square also holds a church, with a lot of community activities.

The area is one of few examples of a truly diverse neighborhood in Gothenburg, which in general is a fairly segregated city. Brunnsbo was built during the so-called Million program; a government initiative to build a million housing units between 1965-1975 (in a country that back then had around 8 million inhabitants). Many of the most segregated and socially vulnerable areas in Gothenburg were built during these years. (Polismyndigheten et al., 2017)

The thing that makes Brunnsbo stand out in comparison to many of the less successful examples is its relation to the city center. Brunnsbo is situated less than 10 minutes by bus from the very city center of Gothenburg, while other areas built during the period can be as far as 40 minutes away. The close proximity to the city center in combination with a high proportion of rental apartments has led to a high diversity of inhabitants. The area mostly consists of multi-story rental apartment houses but there are also row-houses and single-family houses mixed into the area.

Although Brunnsbo is currently not a transport hub, the area is today connected to the transport system only by bus, it is in the Gothenburg public transport plan for 2035 defined to become one of the most important hubs on the north side of the city. (Next Stop 2035, 2016) The plan is to add stops for trams, regional buses and regional trains to the site. This state of future transformation makes it an interesting testing site for this project.

Although there are not that many passengers going on and off vehicles at Brunnsbotorget today, only 2394 on an average weekday, the new train station and tramway will have a big effect. (data: Vдsttrafik, 2017) The train alone has almost 7000 passengers on an average weekday, of which many can come to use Brunnsbotorget as their transit point for further travel into the city center.

The plans for the implementation of the above-mentioned changes are scattered and incomplete. Money has been allocated by the government for the construction of a train station for regional trains. (Vдstsvenska Paketet, 2016) A new detailed development plan for the road and train track area was approved in March 2018. The plan is allowing for the station and also tram tracks to be built but is not a decisive decision that they should be built.

The public transport plan outlining Brunnsbo as a connecting point of the above-mentioned modes of transport is a suggestion and not a legally binding document. A political decision will be needed for these suggested changes to become reality. That decision is yet to be made. The Vдstra Gцtaland city council has allocated 55 million SEK for the construction of the train station.

For this project, I will presuppose that the placement of the new infrastructure will be as it is currently defined in the detailed development plan. The general layout is shown on the map below.



Fig. 11 The proposed layout of the new transport hub

Consequences of the City's Proposal

There are several obvious drawbacks with this configuration which will be outlined in this paragraph. Becoming a transport hub has the potential to have a positive effect on Brunnsbo since, if executed in the right way, it can make the area more well-connected to the city and improve the positive urban qualities of the square. To get the positive urban effects of this transformation it would be preferable to concentrate all transport activities to the area close to the square. Firstly, this would simplify transfers between the different modes that will converge at the site if they are in close proximity to each other. Secondly, by placing the stops close to the current urban activity it could improve the potential for businesses and organizations to increase their visitor numbers. Waiting time could also more easily be made pleasurable if it naturally would happen at the square.

With the current plan, the transport activity will not be gathered around the square, but rather be moved from there. Both the train station and the new tram line are placed to the south-west of the square. They will also be separated from the square by relatively large infrastructure features. The risk is that this placement will draw attention and foot traffic from the square and instead concentrate it on the new station, which surrounded by roads, will be complicated to activate. I fear that this proposal will take what could have been an injection of life to an already vibrant place and instead killing it. Another concern is that the new infrastructure will actually cut Brunnsbo off even more from the nearby commercial district Backaplan.

With that said, working out a better layout is a project in itself and not the purpose of this one. The aim of this project is to inject travel time with productivity and pleasure and work out a strategy of how to implement that kind of thinking at the transport hubs of the city. Therefore, in the case of Brunnsbotorget, rather than moving the station, this project will be geared towards using the developed tools to improve the situation.

Current community

Unlike Marklandsgatan which is a place exclusively devoted to movement, Brunnsbotorget actually has a community connected to it. The square is the natural meeting point for the area and holds most of the necessary services. The risk of the plans for development is that attention is drawn away from the square towards the new stations that will be surrounded by heavy infrastructure. Instead of prospering from a new flow of potential customers, the businesses at the square might suffer from a loss in footfall.

If this happens, it would be devastating to the current community of the area. By observing activities in the area, I have identified three main groups: elderly, first or second-generation immigrant families with young kids, and students.

Of these three groups, the elderly people of the area seem to have the strongest connection to the neighborhood. Many of them might have lived there since it was built in the mid-60s. They use the outside spaces in and around the square to socialize, exchange gossip, etcetera. The immigrant families, and especially their kids, are also fairly connected, using the outside spaces to play and socialize. The students, many of which live there on temporary contracts, do not have the same social connection to the area but are still an integral part of the mix of people. This kind of delicately mixed composition of people is very unusual in the segregated city of Gothenburg. It is important to try to preserve it when transforming the area because many of the social values could be lost if one or several of these groups are pushed out.

The housing company Bostadsbolaget, which owns a majority of the housing stock of the area, has raised concerns that they think that the social implications of the proposed infrastructure have not been investigated enough. This will be further discussed in the project proposal part of this paper.

3.2.3 Stenpiren

Stenpiren is a public transport boat terminal, finished in 2016. The terminal is connecting the public ferry system to the inner-city tram and bus network. In this report, Stenpiren will be used as a reference project, a potentially positive example of how a transport hub can be developed today, and not as a case study for design implementation.

Stenpiren is situated in the oldest part of the inner city, in the area called “within the moat”. Gothenburg was first planned as a military base and the area described was the one that was inside of the fortification moat. This area is today perceived to be the most central.

Fig. 12 The “within the moat” area, Stenpiren in the north-west corner



Fig.13 The ferry lines connecting Stenpiren to the Hisingen island and western Gothenburg

At first sight, it is clear that Stenpiren is a very much more visually appealing than Marklandsgatan and Brunnsbotorget. The material of the ground pavement is a nice granite stone rather than asphalt or concrete. The terminal building itself also has an inviting materiality, with glass walls, wooden ceilings and benches, and stone floors. It is obviously a place that has gotten a lot of resources and care.

Activity wise, there is a newspaper shop, a high-end coffee shop, a mobile repair shop and a sushi restaurant. The coffee shop and the sushi restaurant also has outdoor seating towards the public outdoor space, facing the harbor.

One of the main features of Stenpiren is the design of the outside public space. It is generous in size and there are a lot of custom designed benches. The layout feels well-thought through and inviting and the fact that it is situated next the water makes it an almost irresistible place to be on a sunny day.

Transport wise it does a good job connecting the areas north of the harbor to the tram lines of the city center. The boats are highly used, especially during rush hours. The boats are also a part of the bicycle network of the city, and people generally take their bikes with the boat rather than crossing one of the two high bridges in the city.

A lot is well-functioning with the configuration of Stenpiren. With that being said, despite its very central location, it feels fairly cut off from the nearby central streets. Mentally, it feels further away than it actually is. It is possible to be only a few blocks away and still not realize it is the closest tram stop and walk to a different one further away.

The city center of Gothenburg is, although being close to the water, not very connected to it. This is due to the historically industrial nature of the harbor areas. This means, in the case of Stenpiren, that the terminal is perceived to lie behind the main streets rather than as an ending point to one. This means that it feels like you have to walk off the main streets, around a neighborhood, to actually get there. Even though it might actually be slower to do so, it is often perceived to be better to walk to a tram stop further away but on one of the main streets.

It is important to note that this might change. The boat terminal is just the first installment of what will become a completely new neighborhood by the water. It is possible that the city center will shift more towards the harbor and by doing so making Stenpiren feel less cut off.

3.3 Site testing

Transport hubs are not the most obvious sites to put any kinds of activity at. Because of the fact that they are surrounded by traffic and infrastructure they are dirty and loud. Buses make a lot of sound, trams too. So, what can you actually do at a transport hub? How do our bodies respond to spending more than a short moment at a site like that?

3.3.1 Method

To answer the above-mentioned questions, I decided to subject my own body to the sensations of the transport hub. I brought a thermos of coffee, a book, my computer and lunch to see what would happen if I did the things I normally do, but at a transport hub.

3.3.2 Marklandsgatan

Marklandsgatan is separated from regular traffic which means that the general sound level is quite low. The trams and buses, on the other hand, make much a lot of noise and they are very frequent. A bus or tram passed at least once a minute. There is also a lot of people and circulation which shows that it is an important hub.

I sat down to work on my computer. I noticed that I am not that bothered by noise or by the fact that people are walking by. I actually found it kind of reassuring to have commotion around me while I am working. I am aware though, that this certainly is not true for everyone or even most people. But it is still interesting to see that hubs necessarily are not bad places for productive work.

3.3.3 Brunnsbotorget

I sat down to read a book and have coffee at a bus stop close to where the station will be built. The road passing by has a lot of road noise. The traffic passing by is heavy and frequent. Buses, on the other hand, are scarcer, one in every five minutes or so. Not that many people waited at the bus stop either.

It was pleasant to sit in the sun and read. I was surprised at how much the simple bus shelter blocked the wind. The high level of noise made my head hurt after a while.

I also had my lunch at the bus stop. Beforehand I expected that I would experience the smell of combustion gases a bit repulsive while eating, but I did not find that to be a problem.

3.3.4 Conclusions of site testing

Doing activities at the hubs was mostly a pleasant experience for me. I did not have a problem with the movement of people or smells. The biggest issue was for sure the noise levels. It is just not comfortable to spend a lot of time at a place that is that loud.

I found that for this project to work, there is a clear need to, by design interventions alter the environment to better suit the proposed functions. This will, at the most basic level, mean something that shelters from noise.



4. Reference List

Academic papers:

Frдndberg, L., & Vilhelmson, B. (2014). Spatial, Generational and Gendered Trends and Trend-Breaks in Mobility, Handbook of Sustainable Travel (pp. 15-32). Springer Netherlands.

Schafer, A. (2000). Regularities in Travel Demand: An International Perspective. Journal of Transportation and Statistics, 3(3), 1-31. Lindelцw, D. (2018) Running to Stand Still - the Role of Travel Time in Transport Planning, Sweco Urban Insight.

Reports:

Atkins. (2015). Journeys of the Future

Deloitte University Press. (2016). The Future of Mobility: What's Next?

McKinsey&Company. (2016). An Integrated Perspective on the Future of Mobility

Polismyndigheten (2017) Gцteborgs Mest Utsatta Omrеden (eng. Gothenburg's Most Vulnerable Areas)

Svensk Kollektivtrafik. (2014). Kollektivtrafikbarometern (eng. Public Transport Survey)

Svensk Kollektivtrafik. (2017). Kollektivtrafikbarometern (eng. Public Transport Survey)

Vдstra Gцtalandsregionen et al. (2017(1)). Mеlbild Koll 2035

Vдstra Gцtalandsregionen et al. (2017(2)). Dialograpporten, Next Stop 2035

Interviews:

Arby, H. (2018, April 18). Personal Interview.

Broback, M. (2018, January 4). Personal Interview.

Hietanen, S. (2017, November 7). Personal Interview.

Lindelцw, D. (2018, March 15). Personal Interview



Part 3. Project Proposal

1. Introduction

The design phase of this project is about implementing the concepts and ideas developed in the brief and in the research phase. I.e. to materialize the theoretical framework and making it concrete and adapted for the conditions of the sites that I am working with. I have so far developed ideas for how to improve travel time use at transport hubs, in the third part of this report I aim to show how I think it can be achieved at Brunnsbotorget and Marklandsgatan.

The aim of this project has been to examine how the time spent traveling could become more useful. It took the project Volvo Cowork, developed by Daniel Roche and myself, as a starting point. In that project, we explored how workspace could be distributed throughout the transport system. I believe productive work is important. If time spent traveling could become more productive, fewer hours would have to be spent at the office. With that said, working is not everything. For the transport system to fully improve there must be pleasurable leisure as well. So, the starting point for this project was to see how productivity and pleasure could be injected into the transport system.

To implement the brief for each site and to incorporate the findings of the research, I developed two short and concise individual briefs for each site. Since the two sites are so different, the implementation at the two sites will take different shapes. perception spent transport travel

2. Brief for each hub

2.1 Brunnsbotorget

As an addition to the brief presented in part 1, the project should for Brunnsbotorget specifically focus on:

1. Catering to the needs of the existing communities

2. Catering to the needs of the new commuters

3. Defining a common ground of the two groups

4. Saving and improving the focus on the square

At Brunnsbotorget there is a current community to take into consideration. This project will focus on finding a common ground between the new influx of commuters and the current community.

There is a real threat that the planned changes of Brunnsbotorget might come to hurt the current life of the place. How can the interventions of this project instead protect and improve?

2.2 Marklandsgatan

As an addition to the brief presented in part 1, the project should for Marklandsgatan specifically focus on:

1. Improving the waiting time experience

2. Exploring the possibilities to encourage meeting/interaction and finding a common ground for the different socioeconomic groups converging at the site

Since Marklandsgatan is a place that is isolated from its surrounding context, it does not have a community of people belonging to the place. From the research, I found that two very different socioeconomic groups meet at Marklandsgatan and that is something that this project should take advantage of.

While the first part of the local brief is true for the brief in general, it is specifically important at Marklandsgatan due to the lack of activity going on there today. The activities that can be injected into the space should be geared towards finding a common ground between the different socioeconomic groups. The aim is to transform Marklandsgatan into a meeting space and a truly public place. This does not necessarily mean that is should be a place for political discussion; there is also a point to make that doing more mundane things with or next to people that you otherwise do not meet can be equally effective.



3. Project description

3.1 Brunnsbotorget

Title of project:

Pavilion for Community and Commuters:

A Housing / Infrastructure Collaboration

3.1.1 Opportunity

Brunnsbo as an area and Brunnsbotorget as a transit hub will go through a significant transformation in the coming years. The new train station and tram stop (explained in more detail in the research part of this paper) will come with opportunities but will also pose some challenges.

Fig. 1 Customer journey, description from Stenungsund to Gothenburg

Since the centrally located Gothenburg Central Station is overburdened the city is planning to unburden it by building smaller train stations around the city. Brunnsbo will be such a station for the train line Bohusbanan, that connects towns up north of Gothenburg to the city. This means that people that used to go straight to the city center with the train now have to change to either bus or tram at Brunnsbotorget (see illustration above).

The housing company Bostadsbolaget that owns and maintains the housing stock of the area has raised some concerns over the content of the recently approved detailed development plan (sv. detaljplan), that among other things allows for the new train station to be built. In a comment to the plan they say:

“With the proposed plans there are great risks that the area will be cut off since the proposal creates a major barrier between the Backaplan area and Brunnsbo. The social effects of the proposal have not been investigated to any larger extent, which the company sees as a major shortage of the material.”

- Bostadsbolaget, Granskningsutlеtande, 2018-03-20 (trans. from Swedish)

The interesting thing about this quote for this project is that it shows that the housing company is aware that the current inhabitants might be affected by the proposed actions. It also shows that the housing company is a potential stakeholder in the project.

3.1.2 Stakeholders

To make this project happen, I have identified three main stakeholders:

1. Vдstra Gцtalandsregionen:

The Vдstra Gцtaland City Council is in charge of healthcare and public transport in the region which Gothenburg is the largest city in. They have allocated 55 million SEK for the construction of the train station at Brunnsbotorget.

2. Vдsttrafik:

The public transport company of the Vдstra Gцtaland region. They operate the trains that will use the new train station. Vдsttrafik is also owned by the Vдstra Gцtaland region.

3. Bostadsbolaget Gцteborg

The dominant housing company of the area.

In addition to these three stakeholders, there are many secondary stakeholders ranging from individual inhabitants to the different inhabitant groups, to the church and the business owners of the area.



3.1.3 Social Gathering Spaces

It is not uncommon for housing companies in Sweden to provide some kind of gathering space for the inhabitants of an area. A space that can be used for meeting for community groups or to be rented for parties etcetera. This is regarded as one of the amenities offered by the housing company. Despite the fact that there is only one landlord in Brunnsbo there is no such amenity provided. Since the area has a large diversity of inhabitants a space like that would be of great use.

The only two gathering spaces of the area today is the church and a meeting space for retired people operated by the city of Gothenburg.

Fig. 2 Official gathering spaces in Brunnsbo

3.2 Project proposal Brunnsbo

To cater to both the current community and to the new commuters I propose to not build a traditional waiting terminal at the train tracks. Such a terminal would likely be empty most of the time outside of rush hour. Instead, I propose that Vдsttrafik and Bostadsbolaget would collaborate to build a pavilion, that could alternate between being a waiting terminal and a gathering space for community activities. A pavilion that, depending on the time of the day/year, belongs in different amounts to the community living in Brunnsbo and the commuters that are coming in from other places. The pavilion would be flexible over time and sometimes act as a gathering space for different local actors and sometimes as a waiting space for commuters.

This collaboration could increase the usage of the space while at the same time decrease the financial load for each of the stakeholders. With a smaller portion of the money allocated for the train station in addition to a contribution from the housing company, the area could get an adequate waiting space and a highly needed community space.

3.2.1 Placement

The placement for this pavilion is crucial. It needs to be located so that both the commuters and the community can access it equally well. I looked at how the inhabitants are moving through the area today, which is mainly along two roads going in a west-eastern direction, one in the middle of the buildings leading to the square, and the other outside of the buildings leading to the bus stops.

Important to remember is that there will only be one train line departing from the train station. This means that commuters will have to move either to the tram stop or to the bus stops. Since this is the case placing the waiting space at a different location than at the platform will not have any negative effects since people have to move anyway.

I identified a gap between the train station and the tram stop on the one hand, and the bus stops on the other. This gap happened to also be a space laying in between the community and commuter movement.



Fig 3. Movement diagram

This gap is located in the eastern part of the large parking lot, in front of the apartment buildings. My proposal that the housing company, which controls the parking lot, allocates a part of the parking lot for the pavilion. People living in the apartment buildings will also have to cross the parking lot to get to the new tram stop. I propose that a new pedestrian path is created in connection to the pavilion.

Fig. 4 Proposed placement of pavilion with new pedestrian path

3.2.2 Design

The key design characteristic of the pavilion is that it should be flexible enough to transform from catering mainly to the needs of the commuters during rush hour to catering mainly to the needs of the community at all other times. I imagine (as in the diagram to the right) that there will be smaller parts that are always dedicated to either group. The idea behind this is that even outside of rush hour there will sometimes be commuters that need to wait for a train. The community section can be used for storing and displaying things that are important to their activities.

A second key characteristic for the pavilion is that it will be a showcase for the activity and the actors of the area. The pavilion will do so in two ways. Firstly, it will be a transparent structure placed close to rather heavy traffic. This means that it will act as a storefront for the area. People passing by in their cars will see it and immediately understand that Brunnsbo is an active district.

Secondly, it will act almost like a museum of the area. The community will have the opportunity to leave traces of their activity within the pavilion. This will be visible to the commuters waiting for their train or bus. This means that at the same time as they have something to look at while waiting, they will also learn more about the area they are in.

Fig 7. Plan of pavilion with gardening features

This project is more of a brief for the architectural design of the pavilion than an architectural design itself. The aim is to explore the dynamics behind, identify the stakeholders and the actors and paint a picture of the activities that will be going on there. The plan above represents the schematic shape that I have been working with. A more irregular shape is used to create a more interesting outside space since the pavilion is supposed to open up to its surrounding during the summer. A good reference for the outside space is Stenpiren, the Gothenburg transport hub used as a reference point in the research part of this paper, where the outside space is well designed and highly used.

I have made the estimation that the pavilion would be approximately 150 sqm to host the proposed activities. It is important that the space is transparent so that the activity happening inside is seen from the outside.

3.2.3 Use

Since this project started out with a research looking at travel time use, the use of and the activities that take place at the transport hub has always been the cornerstone of the project. This pavilion is proposed because it can actually improve both Brunnsbo as an area and the travel time experience for people using it as a transport hub. The pavilion is to create a common ground between commuters and community, to prevent them from occupying the same space without interacting.

Fig. 8 Diagram, usage of pavilion during and outside of rush hours

The usage of the pavilion will transform throughout the day. During rush hours, which is in the morning and in the afternoon, the pavilion will mostly be accommodating the commuters. It will provide them with a comfortable waiting space, protected from noise and wind and cold in the winter. During that time the commuters can get to know the area better through traces from the community activities, that is creating a museum over the area.

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