Universal design for local transport – some European experiences
C G B (Kit) Mitchell
Until about 30 years ago, public transport suppliers almost always took as their first priorities technical efficiency and economic profitability. User abilities and requirements came a clear second; passengers were expected to cope with the systems provided.
This led in Europe to many central railway stations requiring passengers to climb flights of steps to the train platforms, carrying their luggage, children and other encumbrances. This is not because architects like to make people suffer. It is the rational solution to fitting a railway into an existing urban area, with economics taking priority over ease of use. The train tracks must be either elevated or in tunnel to avoid the existing streets, and elevated is less expensive.
Similarly, urban buses had high floors, onto which passengers climbed up steep and narrow steps. The high floor was to provide space for machinery and a strong chassis, and to minimize intrusion of wheel arches into the passenger space. The steps were steep to avoid cutting into the chassis and narrow to maximize the number of seats that could be fitted. This type of design typically excluded about 25% of elderly and ambulant disabled people.
Where services for disabled people were provided, they were usually in converted delivery vans, fitted with a wheelchair lift and operated by day centers, charities and local government social services departments. They provided travel to day centers and for special excursions, but gave no opportunity for spontaneous travel to destinations of choice.
Where accessible infrastructure was provided, it was often unsuitable because of lack of knowledge of the capabilities of elderly and disabled people (and these groups are very different in many respects, though disability is more common among older people).
That was the situation before the application of Universal Design to transport systems. Universal Design is the concept of designing services, equipment and infrastructure to be easy of use for as much of the population as possible, rather than catering for those who can use a standard service and adding specialized provision for those who cannot cope. Universal design, or people centred design, puts peoples’ abilities and requirements first, uses technology to satisfy those requirements, and accepts the economic cost, if any (and it is usually very small).
Sadly, technical and economic priorities still dominate in much of the world, and new infrastructure and vehicles are being built that are no easier to use than those in Europe thirty years ago. Even in parts of Eastern Europe, public transport is still useable only by the fit and agile!
Several factors changed attitudes with regard to local buses. Surveys of disabled people showed that there were many more than had been realized – about 14% of the adult population in Britain. And only about 5% of disabled people used wheelchairs. Most could walk and climb steps, but with difficulty; about 10% of the adult population need a rest after walking 400 yards or climbing 12 steps, and 5% cannot walk 50 yards. Similarly, most blind people can see, but not well. Only 0.1% of the adult population cannot see where a window is, but over 4% cannot read normal newsprint, let alone a bus timetable. Operators and manufacturers began to realize that design features that made buses impossible for disabled people also deterred many able-bodied passengers.
In the early 1970s, research in laboratories established the physical capabilities of older and disabled people (height of steps, importance of handrails, dimensions for seats and aisles), and in the early 1980s research continued to observe older people using bus services and to establish the importance of detail design features on buses. In 1988, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee produced a specification identifying the design of a bus that would be easy for most people to use, but would not be wheelchair accessible. This specified low steps, wide treads, good handrails, colour contrasts for all handrails and step edges, plentiful stanchions, seats that were big enough for people to use comfortably, bell pushes that could be reached by seated passengers. The manufacturing industry protested that these requirements were impossibly demanding, but a decade later they are the norm for almost all full-size buses. If we had legislated for access, we could not have required standards that matched peoples’ abilities, but only a compromise that would have done much less good.
The next step in local bus accessibility was the introduction of low-floor buses. These appeared in Germany in the late 1980s as a purely commercial development to reduce time at bus stops by speeding boarding and alighting. As soon as they entered service, people started using strollers and wheelchairs in them. After a short period of fitting them with lifts for wheelchairs, a standard approach of using a boarding ramp has evolved.
A passenger in a wheelchair enters unaided and positions themselves facing backwards in a special space with their back against a padded backrest. A stanchion or seat belt prevents the wheelchair moving sideways in turns. Boarding time is typically 40 seconds, and unless the ramp is manually operated, the driver remains in his/her seat. Low floor buses are much easier for elderly and ambulant disabled people, and it is possible to travel with shopping trolleys, luggage and strollers. The low-floor bus is good for everyone, and the initial price surcharge has now almost disappeared.
The effectiveness of low-floor buses is increased by accessible bus stops. At the least, there should be a hard-surfaced area about 60 inches along the kerb by 100 inches at right angles to the kerb. This provides space for a passenger in a wheelchair and the ramp or lift from the bus. This area must connect to the local network of sidewalks and pedestrian paths, and there should be a nearby ramped kerb so that the passenger in a wheelchair can get to the bus, if the bus cannot get close to the kerb.
Even better, in urban areas streets with parked cars, is to build the sidewalk out into the road by some 60 - 80 inches at the bus stop. This allows the bus to draw in parallel to the kerb, which in turn allows the kerb to be raised to about 7 or 8 inches, to reduce the step up unto the bus. It also requires fewer parking spaces to be lost than a normal kerbside bus stop with sufficient length of kerb clear for the bus to draw into the stop. It also provides space for a shelter and seat, which are a great help for older passengers.
The high-floor coaches used for longer journeys are a problem for almost everybody, because of their steep and narrow steps, often without a good handrail. Some help for ambulant people can be provided with a retractable step and better handrails. There have been many projects to provide wheelchair access with a specialized lift, but in general these are expensive to install, take valuable baggage space, often frighten the passenger using them and are little used.
A far better, more universal, solution is to use a double deck vehicle with the lower deck split between about 16 seats for passengers who do not want to climb steps and space for baggage. These are in widespread use in Europe, and although most are not yet wheelchair accessible, it would take little design effort to make them so. They make it possible to include passengers in wheelchairs with other passengers who do not want to climb steps, rather than segregating them.
Even when saloon cars are used as taxis, access for elderly people can be improved by fitting a swivel seat in the front passenger space. In Scandinavia, where taxis with user-side subsidies carry about 90% of paratransit trips, swivel seats in taxis are very common.
In Britain, all new purpose-built London taxis have been wheelchair accessible since 1989. This has cost very little and has increased space in the passenger compartment for everybody. Because London-type taxis are used in all big cities, most of the taxi fleet in these areas is now wheelchair accessible. Recently, taxis based on people-carriers, which are less expensive than the purpose-built London taxi, have been made wheelchair accessible. In Sweden, a low floor taxi is now in service, which costs little more than a standard people carrier. This may well be the way taxis develop, into a fully accessible, small vehicle, service.
Just as local buses have been made easier for everyone to use, so sidewalks and other pedestrian areas have been improved. Ramped kerbs were one of the biggest improvements and help many more than wheelchair users. We use a textured paving strip at ramped kerbs to warn blind people that they are moving from a sidewalk to the road without crossing a kerb. In town centers, there is an increasing use of “speed tables”, where the road is raised to sidewalk level to provide a level crossing, and at the same time to slow traffic. Light controlled crossings have sound signals to tell blind people when the lights are in their favour. The newest crossings use people detectors to extend the length of the pedestrian green phase when a slow walker is on the crossing. There is increasing awareness of the need for plentiful seats or other resting places, for those who need frequent rests.
Good quality pedestrian infrastructure is probably the single most important element in local accessibility. Every journey, whether by car, bus, train or on foot, involves some walking or assisted walking. Without good pedestrian infrastructure, accessible vehicles and financial support achieves less than could be achieved.
Planners and engineers need to spend time watching their constructs and services being used. Where an area is well used, where there is a full range of ages and abilities present, where people are relaxed, you have probably got the design right. Where sidewalks are relatively empty and there are few older and disabled people, you may have got something wrong. Where pedestrians walk up the road, because the sidewalks are unusable, you had better think again!
All over the world, you see infrastructure, vehicles and services that are not as easy to use as they might be. Sometimes this is because technical and economic priorities dominate, or funding is not available. Often it is because designers give greater priority to moving traffic than to pedestrians. Sometimes it is because the designer has not understood the requirements and abilities of the users, even though these are now reasonably well known. Sometimes it is a result of failure to maintain or manage the situation. Almost always, it is a result of the designer or operator not looking at their system or service through the eyes of a user. The saddest examples are where the designer has tried to get it right, but not knowing of guidance that is available, has spent considerable amounts of money getting it wrong.
Travel patterns of elderly people in Britain are very different to those in the USA. This is a result of may factors, including lower car ownership, land-use planning that is more pedestrian friendly, public transport that is easier to use and which may offer better services, and financial concessions for elderly bus and train passengers, and for taxi passengers in some areas. It does appear to reduce the pressure on older people to continue to drive, and the dread of having to stop driving, that seems to be common in the USA.
In Britain, as in the US, frequency of travel for non-work activities increases with retirement and continues high until the mid- to late-70s. But even so, the total number of journeys per year does reduce from about the age of 60 (younger for women). Also, as in the US, men tend to travel as car drivers and women as car passengers. All the reduction in the number of journeys is the result of reduced numbers of journeys as car driver.
Unlike the US, in Britain, the number of bus and pedestrian journeys increases after the age of 60, and only declines after the age of 75 - 80. In the US, transit use is much lower in middle age, and declines further after retirement. In Britain, these results for the whole population are partly a result of driving licence holding declining with increasing age. But if you consider only licenced drivers, both the number and length on car driver journeys reduces with increasing age (more for men than for women).
The type of area does affect how people travel. For people in their 60s, the most frequently used means of travel by residents of all areas except London is car driver. But in all areas, people are making 250 – 300 pedestrian journeys a year, second only to the number as a car driver. For people aged 70 and over, except in rural areas, walking is the most common form of travel, accounting for about 250 journeys a year. Bus is important in the biggest cities, and car passenger provides about 150 journeys a year except in the largest cities. Overall, as people get older they are driving fewer journeys and using alternatives such as bus and walk.
Some consider that these travel patterns are transient, and Europeans will become more car dependent as car ownership rises. There is no doubt that people want to get and use cars more. But in Italy, which has the highest car ownership in Europe, public transport use is the second highest in Europe. And Britain, with rather low car ownership, has one of the lowest uses of public transport. It does appear that where alternatives to the car are good enough (and in many places they are not that good), people will chose between car, bus, train and walk for any particular journey. This means that loss of a driving licence, while limiting and a worry, is not quite as devastating as it is in a more car dependent society.
COST (1995) COST 322 - Low floor buses. Report EUR 16707 EN, Directorate-General for Transport and Directorate-General for Science, Research and Development, European Commission, Luxembourg.
DPTAC (1988) Recommended specification for buses used to operate local services. Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, Department of Transport, London.
Institution of Highways and Transportation (1991) Reducing mobility handicaps: towards a barrier-free environment. The Institution of Highways and Transportation, London.
Mitchell, C G B
(1998) Access to transport systems
and the trend to universal design. Paper to the 8th International Conference on
Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled People, TRANSED’98, Perth, Australia, September 1998
Figures – use the slides from the ppt presentation, printed as handouts 6 per page. Print select slide order 1 -12