In 2003, John Austin worked with another consultant, Peter Warman, to conceive and develop the Mobility Hub concept and apply it to the UK, together forming the consultancy MobiHub Ltd. At the same time the concept was also (separately) being developed and then rolled-out in the city of Bremen and elsewhere in parts of northern Europe and Canada.
The aim of John’s 2021 FIT fellowship, carried out in conjunction with the University of Plymouth, was to develop a methodology that could potentially be applied throughout Great Britain to identify potential Mobility Hub locations in the South West region of England, using geographical modelling techniques and a wide range of datasets.
However, during the research the project evolved to become a study of what features would in practise determine where Mobility Hubs should go, and of whether a methodology to identify and analyse these could be determined. Also considered was whether the development of such a methodology was realistically possible under existing conditions of national datasets and, if not, then what changes might be needed to those datasets to facilitate such a development.
About John Austin
John is a transport consultant, focussing on public transport, and is a Chartered Geographer, an economist and a visiting lecturer at the University of Westminster.
John started his transport career as a National Bus Company (NBC) management trainee, where he initiated and implemented the Moorsrider leisure bus service over the North Yorkshire Moors – the precursor to the popular Moorsbus network.
After a subsequent role at NBC building statistical models to forecast bus demand he left transport for 10 years to work in data and strategy analysis in local government and industry.
Since returning to transport as a consultant he has developed specialisms in public transport information design and has worked across Europe and in Indonesia, Nigeria and Kazakhstan, including consulting for several international government organisations.
In 2000 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study public transport planning in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.