Design of universal accessibility systems for public transport

Project Information

UNIACCESS

Grant agreement ID: 12504

Project closed

Start date 1 January 2005

End date 31 December 2006

Funded under

• Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems: thematic priority 6 under the Focusing and Integrating Community Research programme 2002-2006.

Total cost € 1 300 000,00

EU contribution € 1 300 000,00

Coordinated by

GRUPO INTERES ACCESIBILIDAD TRANSPORTE A.I.E.
Spain

Exploitable results

Accessibility in public transport

The Uniaccess project developed 3 key results: Accessibility overview Uniaccess provided a comprehensive review on the situation of 'accessibility' in public transport in terms of infrastructure, vehicles, and legislation and standards. This was accomplished by collecting input of accessibility experts from around Europe, as well as gathering the viewpoints of the full range of stakeholders, i.e. end-users, operators, authorities and manufacturers/designers. Accessibility roadmap The project designed a roadmap identifying future R&D needs, through a scenario-based analysis. The roadmap was prepared on the basis of an analysis of the emerging concepts and specifically, the solutions needed to deliver a given scenario-based accessibility requirement. The roadmap is organised according to the 5 steps in any journey chain: before the journey (e.g. travel information & booking); to the terminal or bus stop; at the terminal, platform or bus stop; getting into/out of the transport vehicle; during the journey. It also contains a separate section on R&D in relation to legislation, standards, policy and society. Innovation process methodology Uniaccess's next result was to provide a methodology that would encourage the collaborative innovation process with relevant stakeholders. This methodology is based on modern design methodology and insight in collaborative group processes. A description of the state-of-the-art in accessibility schemes was used as input to the development. Policy implications Today, standards and laws are scattered and vary from country to country and between the different types of public transport. Therefore, Uniaccess proposed a set of five institutional targets to be met by EU policy: - Conduct a comprehensive review of existing national/regional rules & regulations, enforcement and punitive measures on transport accessibility that should result in recommendations based on best practice for national/regional legislators/authorities. - Create a complete set of EU standards for accessible vehicles, infrastructure, information and ticketing. - Create an EU-wide non-discrimination legislation which should cover all aspects of discrimination and all groups of people. - Create a European-level central agency on non-discrimination. - Develop accessibility certification for public transport products and services (vehicles, infrastructure, information and ticketing, etc.). - However, the Uniaccess project also made clear that legislation and standardisation alone would not deliver universal accessibility in public transport. Additional measures, notably of a social nature, are needed to complement them.