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transport, especially stations & trains

longman

The transport providers got a decade or so extra time to implement the Disability Discrimination Act, mainly to modify vehicles/rolling stock

However what this has meant is they don't do anything about disability. The staff training other public services have had to undertake doesn't happen. This is particularly apparent on the railways, where they still ask disabled people to give twenty-four hours notice, though some allow disabled travellers to ask for assistance before travel on the day.

This gives rise to an argument that if disabled people don't notify, anything that befalls them during travel is their fault. For example automatic barriers on stations - sometimes you cannot get the option to go through the manual barrier if you haven't asked in advance.

For people on the autistic spectrum transport can be confusing, noise, people moving around, conflicting platform and on-train announcements (especially the out of sequence ones - "this train is not in service" just as a train full of passengers pulls out of the station).

I'm on several transport bodies where I raise disability issues. When I raise the autism issue the response I get is nobody else raises this.

Is autism no longer an issue for travel? Or is this something NAS needs to look at? Do parents and carers or people with autism in these discussions have no trouble with transport any more?

Parents

  • I know some 26 years or so ago I was working on the railway at a small station to say there was a wheelchair user on the way . I wasn't sure how I was meant to get him off the train, luckily there were some of the "Heavy Cleaning Gang" members on the train and they lifted him off, tho coming out of the station was level access, to get his train back later would have involved an encounter with some steps. I advised him that the next station along would have better access.
    my former M-I-L used to live in the town I live in back in the 50's, and she stated that there was a barrow crossing across the tracks , I gather with lights station if it was safe to cross, or a phone to the signalman, now the station apart to access to one platform is all via stairs. It seems in some ways catering for those with a  disability has gone backwards. I know these crossings and many staff had gone by the time I joined the railway in 1987. I did see a photo from one of the stations c1910 and there were about 21 staff working a shift!!!!  

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  • I know some 26 years or so ago I was working on the railway at a small station to say there was a wheelchair user on the way . I wasn't sure how I was meant to get him off the train, luckily there were some of the "Heavy Cleaning Gang" members on the train and they lifted him off, tho coming out of the station was level access, to get his train back later would have involved an encounter with some steps. I advised him that the next station along would have better access.
    my former M-I-L used to live in the town I live in back in the 50's, and she stated that there was a barrow crossing across the tracks , I gather with lights station if it was safe to cross, or a phone to the signalman, now the station apart to access to one platform is all via stairs. It seems in some ways catering for those with a  disability has gone backwards. I know these crossings and many staff had gone by the time I joined the railway in 1987. I did see a photo from one of the stations c1910 and there were about 21 staff working a shift!!!!  

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