Improving the accessibility of public transport

Summary

Ensuring accessibility is a key factor for success in improving public transport services and attracting new passengers, especially those with reduced mobility.

Implementing sustainable mobility

Prior to the MOBILIS project, the public transport authority Tisseo, which operated 58 bus lines and one metro line, had already improved accessibility for people with impaired mobility living in the towns and villages surrounding Toulouse. Accessibility had also been integrated into the technical requirements of bus fleet renewal and the construction of the second underground line.

The aim of this measure was to:

• assess the overall accessibility of the public transport network and propose a panel of measures to improve accessibility in line with the national legislation on accessibility for disabled persons; and
• define concrete objectives (in terms of vehicle accessibility, station access, modal change, dedicated services etc.) to ensure high-level accessibility to persons with reduced mobility on the entire public transport network.

Progress

In line with a national law requiring all public transport authorities to ensure a 100 percent accessible network by 2015, Tisseo’s political board approved the Accessibility Master Plan in January 2009, giving a framework of activities to achieve full accessibility on its network.

In December 2007, in relation to the master plan, Tisseo

• organised a training session allowing employees of the public transport authority and operator to assess the level of accessibility of the different infrastructures, services and premises;
• installed a new customer service point in the Jean Jaures underground station integrating all the new accessibility standards; and
• started to adapt its website in order to make public transport timetables accessible to blind people (via HTML language and decoder).

Outcomes

Quantifiable targets, such as the validation by the political board of Tisseo of the Accessibility Master Plan and its associated action plan, the Accessibility Charter for High-Quality Bus Corridors (HQBC) and the training plan for accessibility to customer reception points were fully achieved. However, both the accessibility of the Tisseo website and compliance standards for customer reception centres were only partially achieved. A database for managing complaints was opened in parallel to assess, over time, results and agreed actions to make the Tisseo network accessible to everyone.

By 2008, 50 percent of bus stops, 55 percent of vehicles and 100 percent of the metro system were accessible to disabled people, and the Accessibility Charter is now a reference document for all new public transport infrastructure.