Demand responsive services - Meeting with impaired people in Ljubljana
On 20 April CIVITAS ELAN team Ljubljana and the Council for removal of architectonic and communication barriers of the City of Ljubljana organized the first meeting with representatives of physically impaired persons associations in order to present the CIVITAS ELAN project and discuss the best solutions for a flexible Demand Responsive Public Transport System.
On this occasion the PT operator invited all the representatives to visit their headquarters on 7 May in order to get concretely acquainted with equipment and services for impaired. The PT operator - LPP d.o.o., presented three types of ramps which are installed on the city buses and all guests used them. The ramps allow physically impaired persons to enter the buses independently, but those with more severe impediment must be assisted. The number of public buses on regular lines that are accessible to impaired is still insufficient (72 buses or 35% of the total urban bus fleet) and there remains the issue on how to serve the mobility needs of those that live in areas that are not covered by such buses. A positive aspect is that there is a system that provides information on the time schedules of accessible buses via cell phone or internet. In order to understand better the mobility needs of impaired people and assure their accessibility to places and services, it was agreed to collect data on the number of users, routing, destinations (frequency of access), user friendliness etc.
Author: Simona Berden
