Railway stations as public space: how to promote rail journeys via multi-functional railway stations

ABSTRACT

In many European cities, railway stations have become urban hubs in which a variety of functions and uses are focused. These include retail, cafés, offices and housing. They are often also complemented by adjacent amenity open space, in both hard and soft landscaping, alongside a broader provision for other modes, such as public transport, walking and cycling. In this sense, large-scale transport hubs resemble small-scale city centres and, like other urban centres, the public space in stations should meet the needs of a wide range of users. The design and management of railway stations is highly complex and the risk of such nodes failing as quality public spaces is significant. In addition, railway stations play a pivotal role in encouraging public transport use and they have the potential to contribute to a modal shift from more polluting transport modes. We argue that the design and management of such spaces is a key variable in the modal choices many travellers make. Based on empirical research across Europe, this paper presents a set of indicators for assessing the quality of railway stations and their adjacent areas and summarizes our research findings to increase the attractiveness of rail journeys through enhanced public spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Railway stations
• public space
• area regeneration
• public transport

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank RAISE-IT project partners from the six case study cities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

RAISE-IT is co-financed by The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – Transport Sector [grant number 2015-EU-TM-0028-S].