Best practice in public transport interchange design

Overview Austroads Ltd is seeking a consultant or research provider to undertake a project identifying and synthesising contemporary best practice in public transport interchange planning and design. Purpose The purpose of this project is to identify and synthesise contemporary best practice in public transport interchange planning and design, providing evidence-based insights to support safer, more accessible, efficient, attractive and customer-friendly interchanges. Scope The project will produce a research report documenting best practice through a literature review, a review of current practice across Austroads member jurisdictions, approximately 10 case studies and targeted stakeholder engagement. For this project, a public transport interchange is defined as any location where passengers access the public transport network or transfer between services, including transfers between public transport modes and services, and transfers between public transport and other modes of arrival and departure including walking, riding, micromobility, on-demand transport, taxis/ride share and private vehicles. The research will consider the whole interchange environment with a focus on customer outcomes, and will apply to both existing and new interchanges. The scope includes: Reviewing Australian, New Zealand and international literature, guidance and customer experience research, and establishing consistent terminology Identifying best practice principles and planning and design considerations, including interchange hierarchy and typology; movement and place; accessibility and inclusive design beyond minimum standards; safety, personal security and gender-sensitive design; capacity and operational resilience; customer experience, information, wayfinding and amenity; operational requirements and bus priority; active transport and multimodal connectivity; sustainability; and whole-of-life performance Examining emerging trends, such as zero-emission bus infrastructure, micromobility and mobility hubs, Mobility as a Service, on-demand transport and the use of high-value land at and next to interchanges Developing approximately 10 case studies across a range of typologies, scales and settings demonstrating successful approaches, trade-offs, shortcomings and lessons learnt Targeted engagement with member agencies and accessibility and inclusion groups, drawing primarily on existing agency customer experience research The project will not develop new Austroads guidance, standards, warrants or standard drawings. Detailed land use planning, drainage and pavement design, service planning, governance and delivery models, and construction guidance are out of scope. Deliverables This project will produce the following deliverables: Review of relevant guidance, current practice and stakeholder needs Research report documenting the evidence, consultation, case studies, best practice findings, design principles and considerations, knowledge gaps and future research opportunities Project data with populated metadata spreadsheet Webinar Project management artefacts and interim deliverables The report is intended for Austroads member agencies, public transport authorities and operators, infrastructure owners, planners, architects, engineers and urban designers, accessibility and customer experience specialists, and consultants preparing or reviewing interchange plans and designs. Report Format and Style Requirements All submissions that are research project based must adhere to the Austroads style requirements and the Australian Government Style Manual. A standard report template will be provided upon contract commencement, with the following key requirements to be noted: Reports must follow the Australian Government Style Manual, particularly in relation to inclusive and accessible language, grammar, punctuation and capitalisation (for example, sentence case for most headings), and referencing and attribution Pre-defined Austroads styles must be used for all headings, body text, tables, figures and captions; manual formatting such as changing fonts or colours directly is not permitted The Table of Contents must be auto-generated and kept updated The report must be logically structured, consistent, and thorough, with all aspects of the agreed scope fully addressed and justified The Summary and Section 1 (Introduction) are mandatory for all reports Appropriate referencing must be included for external sources, data and studies, and any copyrighted material used must have documented permission and be properly acknowledged A qualified editor must review the report before submission to ensure correct grammar, spelling and readability All figures and tables must be sequentially numbered, include a clear caption inserted using the Microsoft Word Insert Caption tool, and images and diagrams must be clear, relevant and referred to in the text Specific instructions are included for each section within the template regarding expected content, structure and formatting Reports must avoid style corruption often caused by copying and pasting formatted text, with authors verifying that styles remain consistent with Austroads' format Reports should be reviewed to ensure there is no duplication, ambiguity or omission of scope elements Instructions to Tenderers Also included as part of this tender is a Master Services Agreement outlining the Terms and Conditions. All submissions are to be submitted as a PDF at a maximum size of 10MB All submissions are to include a completed Tender Proposal Coversheet The naming convention for submissions is: [your Company name] – [Project No.] – [any internal reference numbers]