Role of the Multimodal Centre in Shaping Sustainable Mobility and Quality of Life in a Medium-sized City – Nysa Case Study

Abstract

The article presents the results of the evaluation of the relationship between the way of shaping public space related to ensuring sustainable mobility in the city and the experiences of users influencing the perceptible quality of life. The assessment was carried out for one of the medium-sized cities, which was included in the list of cities threatened with exclusion. The subject of the evaluation was the city multimodal centreorganised around the railway station in Nysa. The aim of the research was to identify a selected, small group of key challenges and recommendations aimed at improving user experience in using a multimodal centre in the city. The article highlights the role of service infrastructure (stops, stations, transfer centres) in the ecosystem of sustainable urban mobility. Each element of this ecosystem (designed in accordance with the idea of universal design) can have a significant impact on the improvement of the perceptible (declared) quality of life in the city, if the applied solutions positively influence the user’s experience (including the sense of comfort and care). The authors focused on the current state of play in order to identify the key areas of intervention needed to improve the user experience in using the multimodal centre in a small and medium sized city. Attention was paid not only to the aspect of infrastructure accessibility, but also to the relations between urban, architectural and engineering solutions in the context of their impact on the assessment of the multimodal centre in terms of its usefulness in three dimensions: functional, rational and perceptible. The summary outlines the process of achieving from the basic solution standard to interoperability. This knowledge will allow better decision making in the planning of user-oriented projects in the city. This may be of particular importance when the conscious objective of the action is to achieve the level of interoperability expected by users of facilities such as, inter alia, a multimodal centre, which is one element of an urban public space with a significant impact on the quality of life of the citizen. Keywords: user experience, quality of life, universal design, interoperability, sustainable mobility