The Dangerous by Design report from Smart Growth America has some interesting statistics about road deaths. This 2022 report differs from previous reports because it captures the behaviours of people during a pandemic. People walked more and drove less, but there were more road deaths. The report examines why.
“Seeing driving go down while deaths went up should call into question the long-held belief that traffic fatalities are inextricably linked to the amount of driving.”
Conventional wisdom among policymakers and transportation professionals is that traffic fatalities are inextricably linked to the amount of driving. But the decrease in driving during the pandemic meant less congestion and a significant increase in speeds. Therefore more people were killed. Consequently, speed is the key factor.
Smart Growth America claims that too many transportation agencies and decision makers have been “asleep at the switch”. Their incremental changes to improve safety have not made any positive difference overall.
Those in power, “will have to unwind the deeply embedded, invisible yet powerful emphasis on speed, which is completely incompatible with safety.”
The Dangerous by Design 2022report has several recommendations in terms of policy and design. The guest supplements provide practical experience and add depth to the report. The bottom line of the report is that we have to choose between speed and safety.
Walking and wheeling
The report has a sidebar about “walking” and inclusive language. Of course, some people cannot walk and that is why the term “pedestrian” is used throughout. People using mobility devices are considered pedestrians. However, they are not separated from people using other devices such as skateboards. Consequently, data are difficult to assess in terms of people with disability.
An engineer’s perspective
Charles Marohn writes in a guest supplement that engineers start the process by using the values of their profession. They don’t stop to consider their values might be questioned by others. It’s about standard practice. He says no-one asks questions about speed in proposed road and street designs. Engineers might claim they are not in control of how fast people drive, but Marohn questions this “excuse”. He believes they have a duty to consider it.
Transport planners are guided by regulations related to mobility, but accessibility requirements relate to what people can achieve. Accessible transport systems cannot be measured objectively like length or weight but rather by what it enables users to do. So we need a way to merge accessibility measures with infrastructure measures. But how do you measure transport accessibility?
Jonathan Levine presents some interesting concepts about accessibility and mobility in his discussion paper. He explores the conceptual barriers to shifting transport planning from mobility to accessibility. Levine also presents a technique for analysing project-level accessibility analysis.
His thoughts highlight the different goals of accessibility and mobility and how they can be brought together. Transport rules and regulations are the current guiding tools focused on mobility. They are about traffic impact, land use, and transport demands. So embedding accessibility in transport planning requires some new accessibility tools.
One of the issues with adopting equity principles is that they are usually only seen from a transport disadvantage viewpoint. But everyone benefits when their accessibility increases. Using an accessibility approach enables transport planners to focus on human performance rather than infrastructure performance.
Ann Arbor is the subject of a case study where Levine analyses the accessibility impact on three land use development projects. This is where the paper becomes technical.
Levine’s proposed method goes beyond the mobility focus and concepts such as the cost of congestion. The tool takes a standard traffic impact analysis and combines it with an accessibility analysis of an individual land development project.
Everyone is happy when a wheeled mobility user can quickly and easily board the bus or train. And the person wheeling on doesn’t get unwanted attention from other passengers. Based on research in the United States comes a book on accessible public transportation. It covers different technologies, policies and programs with inclusive solutions for everyone. The book is based on research from Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access at Buffalo.
The title of the book is Accessible public transportation: designing service for riders with disability. The video below shows what went into the research, and list of chapters following gives an overview of the content. The focus is on people with disability, but of course, designing this group becomes good design for everyone.
1 The Importance of Public Transportation 2 The Culture of Accessible Transportation 3 The Scope of Inclusive Transportation 4 Trip Planning and Rider Information 5 The Built Environment 6 Vehicle Design 7 Demand Responsive Transportation 8 Paratransit Scheduling and Routing 9 Location-Based Information 10 Social Computing and Service Design 11 Learning from Riders 12 Vision for the Future
Work, transport and wheelchair users
How many jobs can a wheelchair user reach using public transport? Combining wheelchair accessibility with potential jobs is a useful way to show how access is good for individuals and the economy. That’s because we can add anyone with difficulty walking, and also people taking their children to childcare near their workplace.
Montreal and Toronto are retrofitting their networks to ensure that all individuals can use the public transport system. But will it be enough? A group of transport researchers created a method to identify the public transport barriers that prevent wheelchair users from getting to jobs.
In Toronto, wheelchair users have access to 75% of jobs compared to non wheelchair users. In Montreal this figure drops to 46%. The main reason for the difference is that Montreal has less accessible subway stations than Toronto.
In countries without a strong federal accessibility act and/or with major financial constraints, some public transport agencies fall behind in applying universal access design principles, making it even harder for people with a physical disability to access opportunities.
The objective of this study is to compare transit services to wheelchair users and the service offered to an individual not in a wheelchair.
On average, wheelchair users in Toronto have access to 75% of jobs that are accessible to users that are not in a wheelchair, whilst their counterparts in Montreal have access to only 46% of the jobs accessible to other users.
Barriers to public transport use
Why do people with disability refrain from travelling by public transport even after years of focus on universal design? Norway has gone to great lengths to create an accessible transport system, but the use by people with disability has not risen significantly. Why? The answers are not what you might expect. The experiences of non-users reveals the actual design of a bus or a train is not enough to ensure accessibility. The barriers to public transport use is that the system itself needs to be universally designed.
You can read more in the article, Public Transport and People with Disabilities – the Experiences of Non-users. There are valuable lessons here for transit designers in Australia. The authors refer to people with “impairments” and having “deficits” rather than people with disability – the preferred term in Australia.
From the abstract:
Universal design is high on the agenda in Norway, but despite years of focus on public transport design, it seems the number of people with disability using it has not increased significantly.
The aim of this paper is to add to the knowledge of why non-users with disabilities refrain from travelling by public transport. The authors’ research question is: “Why do people with impairments avoid travelling by public transport even when it is readily accessible, and are there any further measures that could lead to improvements?”
Assumptions were made and tested in qualitative studies on people with impairments who seldom or never travel by public transport. These were:
1) that insecurity and expectations lead to seldom or non-use of public transport;
2) that the triggering factors causing seldom or non-use of public transport are different from the issues that users experience;
3) that lack of knowledge among (and help from) drivers and personnel is a considerable barrier to non-use;
4) that a ‘travel buddy’ might help increase the use of public transport among non-users; and
5) that some people with disability have alternatives that work better for them in everyday life.
The findings indicate that feeling insecure, and expectations that problems will be encountered, are significant barriers to non-use. It’s the sum of all these challenges, real or anticipated, that stops people from using public transport.
So, is universal design is the solution? Or will individualized solutions provide a sense of freedom and participation for people with disability travelling by public transport?
Barriers in a public transport journey
When people talk about transport they first think of cars, buses and trains. But the key component linking all of these are footpaths. But having a footpath is only one of the barriers in a public transport journey for people with disability.
Hazard-free footpaths without obstacles are essential for people with mobility devices and people with vision impairment. This was one finding in a study of 32 participants with either reduced mobility or vision impairment. The whole journey study compared the barriers for different disability types.
The participants in the study were independent users of public transport. Their trips were mainly for work or education. The barriers fell into two categories: built environment and the public transport service.
There were several problems with buses including driver attitudes making things worse. Trains were not so problematic as stations were generally accessible.
The research paper provides more information about the barriers, and the experiences of the participants. The top three issues were bus driver attitudes, poor presentation of information, and footpath obstructions.
The study investigated the barriers in a typical journey chain and provides the similarities and differences in the key barriers perceived by people with physical and visual impairments.
The main barriers for physically impaired users were terminals and stops, services, and quality of footpaths. The main barriers for visually impaired users were poor presentation of information, and obstructions on footpaths. Bus driver’s attitude and unawareness of disabled users’ needs was a common concern for both groups.
Mobility and mobilising with public transport
Making the transition from driving to using other transportation options can be difficult – not least of all because many options were not designed with older people in mind. Transport policies, equipment and systems are focused on journeys to work, not the day to day needs of people not in the workforce.
Introduction to Senior Transportation considers the physical and cognitive limitations of older adult passengers, the challenges in meeting their needs, and the transportation methods that do and do not currently meet their needs. The chapters in this book cover many topics. Transitioning from driving, volunteer driver programs, technology and transportation, and ageing policy and transport,
Unintended consequences from policy actions are not new. Sometimes things come undone in those little details that seemed unimportant at the time. Sometimes it’s because policy actions come from different parts of an overall system. Transport is a case in point. Transport is about the whole journey – from the front gate to the destination and home again. It’s more than cars, buses and trains – it’s footpaths, information systems and supporting infrastructure. And transport is a key element of age-friendly cities.
Transportation is a social determinant of health – particularly for older people. According to the World Health Organization their “lives are guided by the available transportation system”.
One potential policy outcome is that distinct actions, which address different facets of the same overall approach, undermine one another.
Australian researchers set about assessing policy actions for supporting older people’s transportation in Greater Sydney. The analysis revealed unwanted consequences because some actions were undermining each other. They also found systemic constraints and the failure to account for small, but important, details.
Older people’s mobility applies to land use, open and public space, supplementary transport, and community transport. This means that policy makers need to examine interactions between different parts of the system so they can foresee potential unwanted consequences. Then they can do something about it.
1. Coordinate plans for residential and public transport development.
2. Establish key performance indicators for creating and funding new footpaths.
3. Improve cross-sector information flow.
4. Increase the predictability of funding for health and social care transport services.
From the abstract
Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) is a framework for promoting healthy ageing through local actions. We use systems thinking to assess potential outcomes of actions to support older people’s mobility, undertaken within an AFC commitment in Greater Sydney.
Four approaches to support older people’s mobility were identified and situated to the Multiple Governance Framework: land use, open and public space, supplementary transport, and community transport.
Analysis revealed potential for unwanted consequences associated with each, which can be generalised into three generic potential outcomes for other jurisdictions to consider. One recommendation is for policy actors to examine feedback interactions between actions so that they can foresee a wider range of outcomes and take defensive action against those unwanted.
This research identifies what to look for, in terms of potential outcomes, and where to look, in terms of the level of decision-making. This research offers a new way to assess the functioning of AFC governance networks by their collective outcomes and challenges the standards for the evaluation of AFC.
Ageing and Mobility: Getting out and about
Jane Bringolf participated in a webinar or the Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management, which includes anyone involved in transport. She covered 5 basic features older people need to encourage them to continue getting out and about. The content of the presentation, Ageing and Mobility, is on the YouTube video below.
After running 23 workshops with older people and local government across NSW, five key elements emerged. They are footpaths, seating, lighting, wayfinding and toilets. In rural areas, parking was also an issue. These were covered in a previous post along with a straightforward checklist on do’s and don’ts.
The car becomes a mobility device as people get older, which puts them at odds with the policy push to get out of the car. Older people feel safer either as a driver or a passenger. The fear of tripping and falling reduces their confidence for walking on uneven footpaths.
Parking adjacent to shops and services in rural towns was also an issue. This was sometimes due to the main street also being the main highway where street parking is restricted.
Ageing and mobility is more than cycles, buses and trains. Many older people just want to access their local neighbourhood to shop and socialise.
Which street guide is the best? Well, that depends on which perspective you are coming from. Urban designers, transport planners, pedestrians and drivers all have a stake in streets. Here are four inclusive and accessible street guides from previous posts for reference.
If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.
Attributed to Fred Kent
Global Designing Cities website has the Global Street Design Guide available for download. The guide has sections for designing streets for kids, and implementing street transformations. Launched in 2014, the Global Designing Cities initiative takes an international view. The website has a series of short films, and a guide for designing streets for children.
A Citizen’s Guide to Better Streetstakes a holistic look at street design from land planning and zoning to streets as public spaces. The main concerns of traffic engineers, such as safety and function are also covered. The guide was published in 2008 but the issues are current today. It is on the 880cities.org website.
The Guide to the Healthy Streets Indicators from the UK has information and checklists in an easy to use format. It focuses on walkability without the express inclusion of people using wheeled mobility, but alludes to them. The guide covers feelings of safety, places to stop and rest, not too noisy, shade and shelter, easy to cross roads, and pedestrians from all walks of life.
The American Society of Landscape Architects promotes green, universally designed streets. These safely separate pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, and public transport and use strategies to reduce reckless driving behaviour. The video below indicates the sensory overload that busy streets can create for some.
Designing cities with AI: Should we?
Facelift is a new AI system that allows urban planers to redesign the look of city streets.
A FastCompany article explains how volunteers from 162 countries rated Google street images. Then the data was put through the AI process. The results were obvious – plazas are beautiful and construction sites aren’t. The next step was to create an interactive tool to generate before and after images – Facelift. Urban planners can use this tool to improve the design of existing places. But there is a question about this: is it beautification or gentrification?
As the share of older road users increases it’s important to pay more attention to their safety as road users and pedestrians. Transport planners have to draw together urban design, street and road design as well as traffic signal technology. This makes the design landscape crowded with regulations and competing interests between vehicles and people.
The mobility and road safety of older people relies on the design of the whole transport system. This includes infrastructure, traffic engineering, traffic signals, signs, and markings. They all impact on safe, barrier-free and inclusive transport.
A conference paper from Germany outlines some important findings on the safety and mobility of older people.
Basic requirements
Basic requirements for transport system design are:
Reduction of complexity of traffic situations
Improvement of the perception of traffic regulations and systems
Design of safe crossings
Avoiding detours for pedestrians and cyclists
For traffic engineers this raises conflicting needs and goals but there should still be good compromises. Of course, considering older people in design solutions usually have benefits for all road users.
The paper covers traffic signal standards and regulations in different countries and the design and timings of traffic and pedestrian signals. Green signals and arrows at intersections can be confusing for drivers and pedestrians alike. Countdown and “don’t walk” signals are beneficial for all. These are common in the United States, Japan and Singapore. Older pedestrians can have more confidence about clearing the intersection.
The Green Man + card in Singapore is like a Seniors Card, and tapping this at the signal button provides more time to cross. Another idea is special buttons or sensors to request a longer time. However, the risk of misuse and the technical complexity rendered this idea unworkable in Germany.
The paper discusses intersection layout, routing of pedestrians and cyclists and control strategies. The author notes there is also a responsibility for pedestrians to enter the crossing at the beginning of the green signal, not some time afterwards.
Terms such as “seniors” and “elderly” can lead to stereotyping and should be replaced with “older persons”. “Special requirements” make roads and transport safer for everyone.
From the abstract
The share of older road users in total traffic is increasing in Germany as well as in most other OECD countries. To ensure mobility and road safety for this group, special requirements have to be considered in transport system design.
Besides basic requirements in transport planning, traffic engineering can significantly improve mobility and road safety for older people. This paper outlines older road users’ requirements in traffic signal control. The paper discusses standards from Germany, United States, United Kingdom and other selected countries as well as examples from practice.
Signal program design, intersection layout, control strategies, and technical design of signal lights are covered. The paper closes with conclusions on how well older road users are considered in traffic signal standards already. It also highlights the need to apply such regulations in practice, despite goal conflicts and financial constraints.
To make future mobility inclusive and accessible automotive practitioners and researchers need to understand the fundamentals of universal design. People from diverse backgrounds and levels of capability should be included in the design processes of future mobility services. That’s the conclusion of a group of automotive researchers and they’ve come up with a framework to help.
The framework helps designers to think of essential design dimensions for inclusive design. There are possible trade-offs, synergies/new options, or other impacts that a decision for a particular design option has. Using a fictional case study they showcase the design process.
The design framework serves as a tool for automotive practitioners and researchers for communication, ideation, or reflection. Following the universal design process the researchers explain how they created the framework and then how to use it. The framework is built on previous work, and the mobility experiences of experts that work in inclusive facilities.
Case study using the framework
The authors advise that sticking to the standard principles of universal design could result in overly complex processes and products. However, thinking about potential users and their abilities increases the chance of identifying synergies. That is, finding solutions that suit the wider population as well as “non-average” users.
Technology will be a major influence on future mobility and connections with web interfaces will form part of the design solutions. The authors take readers through a step by step process. Key sections of the framework cover:
The users’ needs and capabilities
The journey’s context
What does the transportation service look like?
How do people interact with the service?
Training for the journey.
The application of the framework is based on fictional designers, not mobility users. This is very useful for designers new to the universal design concept. By using two designers in the case study scenario, they discuss the pros and cons of each method and idea.
Future mobility will be highly automated, multimodal, and ubiquitous and thus have the potential to address a broader range of users. Yet non-average users are often underrepresented or simply not thought of in design processes of vehicles and mobility services. this leads to exclusion from standard transportation.
Consequently, it is crucial for designers of such vehicles and services to consider the needs of non-average users from the begining. In this paper, we present a design framework that helps designers take the perspective and thinking of the needs of non-average users.
We present a set of exemplary applications from the literature and interviews and show how they fit into the framework, indicating room for further developments. We demonstrate how the framework supports the universal design approach in a fictional design process.
Ergonomists and engineers are considering ways to design autonomous vehicles to include a diversity of users. That includes people with disability and impairments. However, it’s not just a case of adding universal design principles into the design process. Designing an inclusive autonomous vehicle requires attention to many other factors. It’s an interdisciplinary design process.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) present an opportunity for redefining the standard ergonomic design approaches especially when designing for people with disability and impairments.
Researchers in Europe have come up with a way to integrate relevant design data to ensure designs meet standards and the diversity of users. Overall user perception is linked to user perception and satisfaction and this is where ergonomics come into play. The paper is very technical and mainly of interest to engineers and ergonomists. The researchers claim that this platform will turn attention to “human-centric” design rather than engineering design.
For those who advocate for inclusive vehicle design, it shows the complexity designers have to deal with. However, it is good to see this important issue addressed at this early stage of future mass production.
Passenger comfort in vehicles is a complex, human-centric segment of the vehicle interior design process. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) present an opportunity for redefining standard design approaches. There are options for improved ergonomics and meeting the needs of a wide range of users, including persons with impairments.
However, the complexity of incorporating universal design principles together with all other interdisciplinary information in the development process requires a suitable method to systematize the data and simplify their use.
This paper proposes a platform for inclusive autonomous vehicle interior design (IAVID) which can be used as a tool to support the creation of ergonomic and inclusive AV interiors. The proposed IAVID platform is based on model-based systems engineering. It is intended for organizing and updating all relevant interdisciplinary information to input in the AV interior development. By doing so, the interdisciplinary collaboration among vehicle development teams is strengthened.
On the road with autonomous vehicles
What will the future of transport look like post COVID-19 pandemic and what will it mean for autonomous vehicles? For people who don’t or can’t drive, autonomous vehicles seem a wonderful invention. But will the designs and technology be inclusive?
It’s not that no-one is thinking about access and inclusion – they are. But it’s not all about the technology. Some of the problems are related to the way vehicles connect with the built environment. Wheelchair accessible features, such as a ramp, can be rendered unsafe on steep inclines. If the wheelchair is not locked down, bumps in the road could cause the chair to tip or fall.
Some riders will need specific assistive technologies for eye tracking, gesture recognition, and voice control. These would give people with tactile, mobility, and hearing impairments a sense of control without the need to make physical contact. Other practical challenges are around pick up and drop-off, and loading and unloading groceries. Some people will still require human assistance at certain points of the journey.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are closer to becoming a reality in changing the landscape of commercial and personal transportation. The launch of these vehicles comes with the promise of improved road safety, reduced traffic fatalities, and enhanced mobility. However, there are questions as to whether the design of AVs will meet the needs of everyone, including people with disabilities and older adults.
We argue that there exists no conceptual model that guides the inclusive design of autonomous vehicles to benefit all intended users. This paper proposes such a model, called the User Transportation-Activity Technology (UTT) model, which supports the inclusive design of AVs. We present a review of current models of assistive technology design and their drawbacks followed by an introduction of the UTT model and its application in AV design.
This paper may benefit researchers, designers, and developers of autonomous vehicles interested in addressing accessible design issues in such vehicles.
Connect me to my car
Gerard Goggin has written a thoughtful piece on the issue of automated vehicles and how they might, or might not, be good for people with disability. The value of automated vehicles for people with disability is often mentioned in articles related to this technology, but will that value be realised?
The article raises some important points about the depiction of disability and how it is communicated and how that plays out into the world of technological development. Goggin covers “blind driving”, developments by Google and Waymo and more. Mentioning the inclusion of older people and people with disability as good news stories is insufficient to put these users at the centre of designs. Written in academic style but important thinking going on here. The title of the article is, Disability, Connected Cars, and Communication.
“I look at what disability tells us about connected cars, and, indeed, how we might rethink communication and technology.”
Related articles
For a more academic study and design details see, Accessible Personal Transportation for People with Disabilities Using Autonomous Vehicles. They include the principles of universal design in the text and conclude with a list of recommendations.
The motoring body, NRMA, predicted in 2017 that autonomous vehicles will be rolling out in significant numbers by 2020. Their report on the Future of Car Ownershipshows the step by step progress. You can also get a summary of the report in an infographic.
Will we have truly inclusive automated vehicles (AVs) or will we need specialised vehicles for some people with specific disabilities? According to a research paper, several companies are creating prototypes of AVs for people with disability. These include both micro-transit and paratransit services.
Under the right circumstances, automated vehicles can offer a decrease in social isolation, access to vital services, and personal independence. But it will take more than access standards – it requires a universal design approach.
Minimum accessibility standards should be treated as a subset of inclusive design principles. This is what the AV revolution should aim for. In the long run, ensuring access at the beginning is more cost-effective than later retrofits.
Basically there are seven trip-making stages in three categories when thinking about Accessible Automated Vehicles (AAVs).
Pre-trip concierge (Information system Design)
Trip planning and booking
Wayfinding and naviagions (Accessible Infrastructure Design)
Navigating to the AAV pick-up point
Waiting at the AAV pick-up point
Navigating from the AAV drop-off point to the destination
Robotics and Utomating (Vehicle Design)
Boarding AAV
Riding AAV
Alighting AAV
In terms of accessibility, there are three distinct but interconnected areas of concern. The pre-trip concierge relates to the design of information systems that will inform the travellers; wayfinding and navigation relate to accessible infrastructure design; and the boarding, riding, and alighting from AAV without any human attendant relates to the design of the vehicles themselves.
The paper discusses all aspects of the design and operation of autonomous vehicles and access for people with a range of disabilities. It references a wide range of existing research on the topic and mobility, sensory and cognitive disabilities.
The case studies
Nine short case studies include five customised models and four paratransit prototypes. Briefly they are:
Wheelchair accessible AV – for a shuttle service
Customised minivans – oversize vehicles are more flexible
Luxury concept car with tall roof and wide doors
Urban robo-taxi – hail using an app
Single occupancy design – best suited for city travel
Detroit medical campus shuttle – fits 15 people
US Army Catapult – for wounded veterans
Jacksonville Transportation Authority – specified full ADA compliance
ELATE project – purpose-built AAV in two sites
The authors conclude that AAVs offer promise of mobility for people with disability through on-demand options. In Stockholm an automated shuttle bus has been sharing the roads alongside cyclists, pedestrians and vehicles. Apps should be compliant with web content accessibility as a minimum. The design simplicity of vehicles must also account for cognitive disabilities. Simple and intuitive layouts and system controls are good for everyone.
Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology can help disabled Americans achieve their desired level of mobility. However, vehicle manufacturers, policymakers, and state and municipal agencies have to collaborate to achieve support disabled individuals. It requires collaboration for different stages of trip making through information system design, vehicle design, and infrastructure design.
Integrating accessibility at this stage of the AV revolution would finally allow us to develop a transportation system that treats accessibility as a guiding principle, not as an afterthought.
The review of regulations is followed by a review of nine case studies, five corresponding to the on-demand microtransit service model and four corresponding to the paratransit service model. These case studies are essentially different prototypes currently being deployed on a pilot basis.
Recommendations are based on the review of relevant research, ADA regulations, and case studies. Researchers, private firms, policymakers, and agencies involved in AV development and deployment are covered in the recommendations.
The recommendations include better collaboration and adoption of best practices to address the needs of individuals with different disability types. ADA regulations are one of the tools in addition to universal design principles and assistive technologies.
Norway has a long-held commitment to universal design across all sectors. However, with the best will in the world the concept is still poorly understood in transport infrastructure. When Trondheim initiated its new rapid bus transit system, universal design underpinned the design parameters. But designing bus transit infrastructure requires some joined up thinking and joined up standards.
The Trondheim infrastructure experience
The case study of Trondheim in Norway shows how the best laid plans can go awry if there isn’t joined up thinking at the planning stage. Once this was realised the next step was finding ways to remedy the situation. That’s because Trondheim replaced their whole fleet with the new metro buses.
At a late stage in the planning process, with construction of the stations and delivery of the buses well underway, it was discovered that the stations and the buses had been built to different accessibility standards.
Photo of the Trondheim bus transit
In a conference paperJacob Deichmann outlines the issues and the different ideas and lists them in a handy table. All the stations were built to Norwegian State guidelines for accessible design. The “kneeling” buses were designed and built in Belgium. But there was a big gap between bus and kerb edge. The size of the gap also depended on the skill of the driver in getting as close as possible to the kerb.
Once this discrepancy was discovered advocacy groups complained to the media and to politicians. The response was that they met the access standards, but manual flip ramps would be added. However, this does not provide equitable access as someone has to deploy the ramp taking up valuable travel time. And efficient travel times was a key element of the system.
The paper has a chart giving an overview of the different remedies suggested based on product research. It lists the various ramp systems, gap-fillers and bus pads at kerbside. The chosen solutions were training of drivers in the short term. In the medium term there was to be a trial of motorised ramps, the bus pad and a guiding system. Longer term solutions were the gap-filler method and raised platforms.
When standards and guidelines aren’t enough
Both the platform designer and the bus manufacturer followed valid guidelines and best practice. The lack of consistency in the guidelines makes it difficult for non experts in universal design to make the best choices. In the worst case scenario, following standards can prevent a universal design approach.
More training on universal design is required at the planning and procurement stage. The underlying concept of providing an equitable and accessible means of transport needs to be fully understood.
Transport services are only useful for people who can access and use them effectively. Groups who benefit most from improved physical access to transport are more likely to lack access to technology to plan travel. This was a finding by the Inclusive Design Team at the University of Cambridge.
Older people, people with disability, and people with low education had lower levels of access and understanding of technology.
A survey carried out in Germany asked questions about access to technology, ability to use the technology, and using it for transport planning. Vulnerable and excluded groups included women, older people, people with low education, and people with low incomes. Older people and people with disability were the least likely to use a device to access information about transport.
Owning a smartphone does not guarantee the ability to operate complex digital services.
Three groups – people with low education, older people and people with disability had the lowest level of interaction with technology. For people who have low incomes, acquiring devices and being able to afford internet connections is also a barrier.
Older people and people with disability are limited in regular travel because they can’t plan travel or use transport.
Digital mobility services have great potential to increase passengers’ transportation options, improve their experiences and reduce exclusion. However, these advantages are only available to those who can access and use these services effectively.
We needed to find out the range of potential users’ technology access, use, attitudes and capabilities. In 2020, a survey examining these characteristics was carried out with 1010 participants in Germany.
The results showed that older people, people with disabilities and people with low education levels had particularly low levels of all technology variables.
Rolling out digital mobility services requires caution and planning. Non-digital alternatives should be provided to ensure an inclusive service. Digital interfaces must be designed carefully to be usable by and reassuring to digital novices.
Everyone is happy when a wheeled mobility user can quickly and easily board the bus or train. And the person wheeling on doesn’t get unwanted attention from other passengers. Based on research in the United States comes a book on accessible public transportation. It covers different technologies, policies and programs with inclusive solutions for everyone. The book is based on research from Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access at Buffalo. 
Facelift is a new AI system that allows urban planers to redesign the look of city streets. 
