The wheels on the bus go round and round
- 5 Jan 06, 12:00 AM
Nice to see that, in Edinburgh at least, there's a bus company which is taking its responsibilities under DDA 2005 seriously, as reported in last week.
Lothian Buses have gone into partnership with an organisation called "to improve access to public transport in the capital". Capability Scotland recently published a report entitled, , which found that "disabled people are losing out on social lives and work opportunities because buses are often too hard to use". The report is 58 pages long, but it's well worth a read.
So, employees of Lothian Buses will be receiving training designed to give them a "greater understanding of the barriers that affect disabled people and help them to make sure they don't behave in a way that could be perceived as discriminatory". What's more, the training is actually going to be delivered by disabled people. Hurrah!
Is it too much to hope that other bus companies across the UK will take note, and institute something similar themselves . . .?
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This is a major step along the right lines. If only other transport companies would take Lothian's lead. My local bus company does not have accessible buses and although Transport for London has done away with the much maligned Routemaster it is still far from being any good at providing a service for disabled people. In fact the media seemed to concentrate on how unhappy a few bus enthusiasts were at the demise of the Routemaster rather concentrating on the positiveness of this move for disabled public transport users. It is good to see that disabled people will be involved in the training of staff in Lothian. Although I'm not advocating a total ban on non-disabled people being involved in such training it is good to see that people who actually experience the transport system from a disabled persons point of view will have a say on how the staff run the new accessible system.
I live in West Yorkshire and we have very few accessible buses. First seem to be making no effort whatsoever, providing 2 accessible services from my local bus station. They also own the bus station and have put my accessible bus which is run by another company, onto a stand which is so close to the next one that there is no space to get my daughter's pram on and off the bus. I havent even bothered to try my wheelchair which i use for longer distances because i'm scared i'll get stuck on the bus! You would of thought that first with all their money had no excuse whatsoever!