A new parking trial at Longbridge Park & Ride started this week as Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) continue to explore new ways of improving travel for commuters across the West Midlands.
Longbridge is one of four Park & Ride car parks taking part in a 3 month trial of mobile app Save-a-Space, which allows registered users to pre-book their free parking space.
A number of spaces at Longbridge are now reserved for users registered with the app to pre-book, along with allocated spaces at Rowley Regis, Sutton Coldfield and Tile Cross Park & Ride car parks.
With a commitment to offering free parking for rail commuters, parking in all spaces –whether pre-booked with the app or not – will still be free for rail service users.
A spokesperson for TfWM said: “While demand continues to grow on our network we are exploring and delivering innovative ideas and solutions to help meet commuters needs which includes the Save-a-Space trial, providing car share bays, providing Electric Vehicle Charging bays, providing enhanced cycle facilities such as Cycle Hubs, working with partners to improve cycle routes, improving interchange facilities with new bus shelters and improved information as well as planning to greatly increase parking provision at Longbridge and other key sites.”
The spokesperson said that TfWM recognise the high demand for spaces at Park & Ride car parks, saying: “Free parking is in high demand at almost all of our 60 sites which provide over 8500 spaces, these are often full by 07:30 – 8am. This trial is using only 29 bays [across the 4 stations] meaning that just 0.34% of our total spaces are included as part of this trial.”
Moving forward, TfWM continue to look into options to provide multi-storey parking at the Longbridge site, but no decisions have yet been made.
Take part
If you wish to take part in the trial, visit Save-a-Space to register.
