Active Travel Station Audits, Nationwide Northern Trains
Mosodi have been working in partnership with Northern Trains since 2025. We provide strategic and operational insight to support improvements in travel choice, journey experience and local connectivity. Our work is detailed and pragmatic and has resulted in immediate impact through addressing accessibility severances in and around stations, with further work on-going across the Northern network.
Background
There is significant policy focus on improving accessibility to rail stations. Ensuring that as many people as possible can travel to and from rail stations sustainably will support growth in passenger numbers, encourage more rail-based tourism, and unlock new homes that are well connected to jobs.
Mosodi conducted a major package of accessibility audits for stations on the Northern network. The work undertaken for Northern has been multi-faceted and included the production of a robust evidence assessment; a review of national, regional and local policies and plans; assessment of local transport plans and housing and commercial land allocations and permissions in the vicinity of stations; stakeholder engagement; on-site audits and condition surveys at 77 stations; review of on-board experience and journey quality; and development of a robust scoring and prioritisation tool with 32 weighted indicators covering accessibility, convenience, connectivity, policy alignment, and future development potential.
Outcomes
The outputs from this work are clear and impactful, incorporating workplans for short-, medium- and long-term investment (with indicative costs), a comprehensive analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT analysis) for each rail line and overarching strategic recommendations. They are supporting immediate investments by Northern and its partners in improving accessibility and the customer experience.
We continue to work with Northern and its partners to further develop and extend the coverage of the station audits. We are also working to consider how the tool and its outputs can be further to developed to bring additional value to Northern and other stakeholders in the rail, planning and active travel sectors.
Mosodi Team
- Chris Taylor
- Maxine Gregory
- Elliot Kelly
- Lily Walsh
- Ed Ferrari
