Greater consideration should be given to the needs of disabled people when designing and operating transport networks, reports Steve Dale who met accessibility campaigner Alan Benson.

 

Hammersmith Tube station: a key interchange in west London where no less than four Underground lines meet. People rush on and off arriving trains to make their next connection, but not us.

 

I am waiting on the platform beside Alan Benson – an influential campaigner for transport accessibility – and we are expecting a ramp to turn up. Three trains go by before the vital piece of equipment arrives and Alan, who lives with muscular dystrophy and drives an electric wheelchair, can be helped to board a service at last.

 

Delays like this are an everyday inconvenience for mobility impaired public transport users, it seems.

 

“When travelling as a disabled person everything takes a lot longer,” Alan tells me as we take a multi modal trip around the capital on public transport.

 

“The routes available to you are a lot more limited, so interchanging is an important and time consuming activity. Time spent waiting for the assistance you need or because of missed connections can easily add 40% to your journey time.”

 

Alan is chairman of London based campaign group Transport for All. He explains: “Disabled people are not always seen as active participants in society but most are just like everybody else. Lots of us work, commute and have places to be. By giving people access to transport they will become net contributors to society.”

 

One of the most talked about ways of improving travel experience for disabled people is providing step free access within stations. ‘Step free’ is available on around 25% of national rail and London Underground stations.

 

But the phrase does not always have the same meaning, explains Alan. Some stations boast step free access from the street to the train but at others provision only extends to the platform, meaning people like Alan still need personal assistance to board the train.

 

“The difference that makes is independence,” he says. “The main problem with travelling as a disabled person is that you are reliant on people. Station staff are very helpful and make a big difference, but actually it is quicker and much more efficient to not need people.” He adds that for some disabled users a single bad experience caused by disruption or a failure to get the assistance they require can destroy their confidence to travel.

 

In London, the Mayor’s new draft transport strategy has set out an ambition to improve provision and journey times for disabled people, including making 40% of the Tube network step free by 2022.

 

“When it comes to how accessibility investment is spent the thing that everybody talks about is step free, which in most cases means installing lifts,” explains Alan. These, he adds, typically cost several hundred thousand pounds to put in at stations.

 

“Big infrastructure works are incredibly beneficial but also very expensive. There is a lot else that can be done without those major projects.” For example he highlights the benefits of so called ‘turn up and go’ assistance which gives disabled people more flexibility to travel, and emphasises the importance of communication between operators when a person needs help boarding and alighting.

 

Phone apps offer assistance revolution – Read the outstanding scheme that won the CIHT/DfT Inclusion Transportation Award here.

 

He adds: “Only a small percentage of disabled people are wheelchair users and around 90% of us actually need things other than step free.”

 

At public transport interchanges simply providing clear signage for wayfinding as well as well defined, accessible routes and accurate information about what assistance is available is relatively cheap to do and can be significantly beneficial.

 

Even measures like avoiding garish patterns on station walls or reducing noise levels to prevent sensory overload can improve the travel experience for people with autism, while elderly people or those with hidden disabilities like heart conditions could benefit from simple resting places within interchanges.

 

Emerging from the Tube and onto street level, Alan also tells me about the challenges of navigating urban streets for people with visual impairments. “If you are partially sighted street clutter is an absolute pain,” he says.

 

“With shared space schemes there are often no safe routes that are easy to follow for a long cane user and no demarcation between road and pavement. Walking down the street becomes incredibly challenging.”

 

He argues that the views of disabled groups are often not taken enough into consideration when developing street schemes and, as a result, people feel excluded from those areas. “Designers will often say they haven’t had any complaints, so there are no issues. But perhaps they don’t have complaints because these are no-go areas for some people.” 

 

He adds: “For years the disability movement has used the slogan ‘nothing about us without us’. The message is: Involve disabled people early and often in the design of transport projects.

 

“Mistakes will be made at the planning stage rather than at implementation and you will get better, cheaper solutions.”