Following the successful consultation on requirements for new trains for Tyne and Wear Metro that I led in 2016, Open Lab was asked by Nexus to run a further public consultation on the proposed train design to check it satisfied passengers’ needs for many years to come, and decide between various options for fixtures and finishes.
Once again, I devised and led Open Lab’s consultation which, due to the social distancing measures necessitated by Covid-19, was predominantly undertaken online. This consultation made innovative use of digital technology to enable public participants to explore and feedback on various aspects of the new train design. This included social media polls and YouTube webinars, online workshops, and a bespoke website where design options could be explored using 360-degree panoramas, a configurable train interior, and video scenarios from the perspective of those most affected by design features (someone with low vision, a wheelchair user, a mother with pushchair an older person, and a younger person). As with the 2016 consultation, those likely to be significantly impacted by train design features participated in consultation activities and, on this occasion, also helped develop the contents of these activities themselves. These included workshops conducted in British Sign Language.
The consultation had the largest public participation of any public transport consultation in the UK, with around 23,000 contributions. It also produced further useful insights to the 2016 findings, which went on to be reflected in the final train design. This included modifications to the wheelchair space proposed by wheelchair users, the addition of tip seats to increase seating capacity, and commissioning local artists to produce graphic designs for end walls within the trains.
Read more about the project in this journal article. Explore the findings and the tools used to produce them on the consultation website.