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Creating a public realm for all

Celebrating diversity and working towards inclusion should be central to how we design, build and maintain our infrastructure and in doing so will help move towards creating a public realm for all. This report looks at the challenges involved in achieving accessible transport infrastructure in the public realm.

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Project Chair

Nick Tyler, Director of the UCL Centre for Transport Studies and Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering,

Objectives of the report

Identify existing challenges and barriers that people can face when using the public realm  
Collect good practice - both in the UK and worldwide - on inclusive design and technological innovations  
Provide a comprehensive literature review of work done in this area

The Report

>>> Download the standard pdf of the report

>>> Download the easy read pdf of the report

Creating a Public Realm for all e-learning course based on this research

Click here to access the e-learning

Background

The report summarises the content of several publications, feedback from a stakeholder workshop, and responses to a call for evidence. It is designed to raise awareness of the challenges that people can face, such as disabled people (with physical, sensory, cognitive, or intellectual impairments or differences, which may be readily apparent or non-visible), people with temporary disabilities, older people, people with buggies and luggage, so that transport professionals can produce inclusive designs when planning, designing, or proposing changes to the public realm.

The report focuses on disability and age because an inaccessible public realm can all too easily restrict people rather than simply inconvenience them. This can subsequently exclude them from public spaces and the activities these are supposed to provide. Improvements made to the accessibility of the public realm will benefit everybody. Public bodies have a duty to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity for people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. It should be remembered that many people have more than one protected characteristic; for example, a disabled person may also be an older female person.

[1] UK Legislation (2010), Equality Act 2010, UK Legislation

Lead contributors

The CIHT Policy and Technical team developed this project with help from:

Project Chair: Nick Tyler, Director of the UCL Centre for Transport Studies and Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering,
LSTSB Representative: Fiona Blackley
CIHT Technical Champions and the CIHT Partnerships Network
People with lived experience of health conditions or impairments, representatives from disability groups, urban planners, highway engineers, researchers and other experts in the field

How this report was developed

This report was developed through researched gathered from:

Workshops with key stakeholders
A call for evidence.
Review of the draft report by those who contributed to the workshop and responded to the call for evidence