Transport Awareness Developments (Early 2025)

Updated 26th March 2025

This article show some transport-related developments which I have been involved with since the beginning of 2025.

It includes attending a transport safety event and speaking to two key leaders linked with a public transport authority between two departments.


Face-to-face with Paul Franks
A day after New Year's Day (2nd January 2025), I had a catch up meeting with the Transport for West Midlands Safety Manager Paul Franks. This was our first meeting in seven months since we last saw each other at a Transport Focus public meeting in Birmingham along with the Chief Executive Anne Shaw in May 2024

I was providing some updates on my previous developments including being in contact with the accessibility managers at National Express and West Midlands Trains. Also, I have provided an update on my contact with the Disability Policy Manager, Mark Fostbrook and my involvement in a disability hate crime research group in Birmingham.

"Time to talk" event
A special transport safety event is co-organised with Transport for West Midlands, Happy Autistic Lady CIC & National Neurodiversity Training.

During this event, I met several people on public transport and specifically travel safety aspects. The people I met during this event include: Paul Franks, the Travel Safety Manager at Transport for West Midlands; Cerys O'Shea from the West Midlands Safety Travel Partnership; Iveta Pudilova from Happy Autistic Lady CIC & National Neurodiversity Training; Steve McNutt the Stations Manager of West Midlands Trains and Mark Watkins Communications Officer at West Midlands Police.

In addition, Iveta invited me to participate in a video interview related to safety matters on public transport in the West Midlands region. It covers certain aspects of safety and the steps forward on what needs to be improved.

The awareness video featuring me will is featured online via social media

This article show some transport-related developments which I have been involved with since the beginning of 2025.

It includes attending a transport safety event and speaking to two key leaders linked with a public transport authority between two departments.


Face-to-face with Paul Franks
A day after New Year's Day (2nd January 2025), I had a catch up meeting with the Transport for West Midlands Safety Manager Paul Franks. This was our first meeting in seven months since we last saw each other at a Transport Focus public meeting in Birmingham along with the Chief Executive Anne Shaw in May 2024

I was providing some updates on my previous developments including being in contact with the accessibility managers at National Express and West Midlands Trains. Also, I have provided an update on my contact with the Disability Policy Manager, Mark Fostbrook and my involvement in a disability hate crime research group in Birmingham.

"Time to talk" event
A special transport safety event is co-organised with Transport for West Midlands and the awareness organisation Happy Autistic Lady, which is a Community Interest Company.

During this event, I met several people on public transport and specifically travel safety aspects. The people I met during this event include: Paul Franks, the Travel Safety Manager at Transport for West Midlands; Cerys O'Shea from the West Midlands Safety Travel Partnership; Iveta Pudilova from Happy Autistic Lady CIC & National Neurodiversity Training; Steve McNutt the Stations Manager of West Midlands Trains and Mark Watkins Communications Officer at West Midlands Police.

In addition, Iveta invited me to participate in a video interview related to safety matters on public transport in the West Midlands region. It covers certain aspects of safety and the steps forward on what needs to be improved.

The awareness video featuring me will be featured online via Transport for West Midlands, Happy Autistic Lady & National Neurodiversity Training during March. (Further details soon)

In addition, I spoke with Paul Franks about the issues of passenger information and signage related to navigating passengers through Birmingham City Centre and the matter of navigating and connecting to different parts of the city centre to required destinations in the West Midlands. I demonstrate some different examples around Snow Hill Railway station and the Snow Hill Bus interchange nearby which is located near the Birmingham Cathedral. This leads to Paul passing my details to the signage manager to write a face-to-face meeting on this matter.

Awareness meeting with the signage team
In March I met with a person who has a very important role related to passenger information in the West Midlands meeting. A meeting was arranged with Craig Shipley, the manager for signage and passenger information at Transport for West Midlands. Joined by Craig's staff member, we discussed different factors at Birmingham Snow Hill station and nearby at the Snow Hill Bus interchange near Birmingham Cathedral. I cover different aspects, including connectivity, navigating from A to B, travel choices or preferences, and other factors.

Using my experience as a neurodivergent public transport user and my observation the overall objective is to make sure a passenger understands how to navigate to the right location to travel to a particular destination.

Connecting around
Birmingham City Centre has an interconnected family of public transport locations, including five different major bus interchanges with three major railway terminals and around six tram stops. I addressed some of the challenges on how some aspects can create barriers and also certain aspects of passenger information and mapping need to be embraced. I also address a concern about the removal of a major integrated public transport information point, which was a useful starting point tool to understand which location you need to go to the appropriate starting point in the city centre to travel to the required destination. This was taken down and replaced by the large animal sculpture of a bull, featured during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022.

Between myself and Craig, we addressed what are the possible ways forward. Also with some of the major changes to sign it with some of the bus stops in this city centre I said the suggestions to improve the connectivity between the different bus interchanges in the city centre.

The other aspects I addressed included expanding the passenger's choice and possibly passengers who are non-regular users locally and those who are visiting the city and region. My intention is to find ways to embrace this further to make it easier for everyone
 to navigate the city centre and the region. I also communicated the importance of integrated signage between different travel modes from the same location

I will provide a follow-up by developing a suggestion publication for Craig and the team at Transport for West Midlands to develop some useful solutions and possibilities forward.

Neuro divergent project
I was invited to take part in a special transport awareness initiative by Transport for West Midlands. I had an initial virtual meeting with Cerys O'Shea from the West Midlands Safety Travel Partnership, Iveta Pudilova from Happy Autistic Lady CIC  & National Neurodiversity Training along with Michael Sandland the Travel Safety Officer Manager at Transport for West Midlands. We were addressing factors in preparation for a fourthcoming video interview, which I will be participating. This is related to my personal experience as a neurodivergent public transport
 user.

I will provide further updates online and on public transport at a later date.