Helping the Disabled Make Use of Public Transport

 
Travelling without barriers;
© CORDIS

European researchers have developed a personal navigation aid to help disabled people make use of public transport.

By letting disabled people know in advance which bus routes, subway lines or rail links are disabled friendly, people with disabilities can plan journeys that they may otherwise be unable to make unassisted. Once on the move, location-based services accessed via a smart phone or handheld computer can highlight points of interest, warn them of potential obstacles and let them change their itinerary as needs be.

“Until you meet with disabled people and talk to them about their needs it is hard to imagine just how difficult using public transport is,” notes Gary Randall, a researcher at BMT in the United Kingdom. “They are scared of finding themselves isolated, of being abandoned in the world.”

Someone confined to a wheelchair, for example, may end up stuck at a bus stop many kilometres from home if a bus with wheelchair access never arrives, or a blind person could easily become lost trying to make a train connection if there is no one to assist him or her. For that reason, few disabled people use public transport alone in what constitutes a severe restriction of their freedom and autonomy.

To address that problem, researchers working in the EU-funded MAPPED project developed personal navigation software designed specifically to meet the needs of people with disabilities. The system extends technology used in now commonplace GPS navigation aids. It incorporates information about public transport timetables and routes as well as so-called points of interest to disabled people in what the researchers describe as the first application of its kind.

In trials in Dublin and in Winchester in the United Kingdom, people with different types of disabilities tested different versions of the system. Their reactions were generally positive, with 84 percent saying they would find a route planner such as that developed in MAPPED useful in their daily lives.

REHACARE.de; Source: CORDIS

- More about CORDIS at: www.cordis.europa.eu.

( Source: REHACARE.de )