Restrictions on Personal Vehicular Transport

3. Disabled people and their mobility

The OPCS national surveys of disability in Great Britain found that 13.5 per cent of the adult population living in private households had some degree of disablement: in round figures that means about six million people. The surveys were mounted ten years ago, but with an ageing population the numbers of disabled people will have increased rather than diminished in the intervening years.

Disability covers a wide range of conditions; physical, mental and sensory, but by far the commonest consequence is a limitation on locomotion. Of the six million people almost 70 per cent, or over four million, have walking problems, which may vary from not being able to walk 400 yards (366 metres) without stopping or severe discomfort to not being able to walk at all. A very small proportion of the people with the severest forms of locomotion difficulties are effectively housebound but the great majority can manage to get out and about albeit often with difficulty.

A study conducted in Leeds for the Department of Transport on ergonomic standards for disabled people in pedestrian areas found the following:

• Among wheelchair users, 68 per cent needed assistance when going out and a further 26 per cent found assistance useful. Only six per cent did not need assistance.
• Even with assistance 20 per cent of the wheelchair users were unable to move further than 150 yards (137 metres). Without assistance that percentage rose to 76, but in fact almost all of that proportion could not even manage 20 yards (18.3 metres).
• Among ambulant disabled people, 60 per cent either needed assistance or found it useful.
• Even with assistance 76 per cent were unable to move further than 150 yards (137 metres).

While these figures are based on comparatively small numbers of people they are generally confirmed by other studies and serve to emphasise the limitations on distances it is feasible for disabled people to walk or wheel in any pedestrian environment.

Given those limitations, it is hardly surprising that vehicular travel is of prime importance to disabled people. While much remains to be done, the past ten to fifteen years have seen considerable progress in both the development of special services and schemes to assist travel by disabled people and in adaptation of mainstream transport to their needs. Some of the more important of these are outlined in the following paragraphs.

3.1 The Orange Badge Scheme

At present there are over 1.5 million Orange Badges on issue in England; a very substantial increase over the last ten years. Of the 1.5 million, a little over one-third were issued as of right with the remainder issued at the discretion of local authorities.

The Orange Badge scheme has been criticised both for a lack of control over the issuing of the badges and for abuse of the badges once issued. A report prepared for the Joint Committee on Mobility for Disabled People (March 1997) found that the average rates of issue ranged from six Orange Badges per thousand population up to 61 per thousand. As the report pointed out the incidence of severe disability does not vary area to area by an order of magnitude, implying that the issue of discretionary badges is, at the very least open to question. Abuse of the use of Orange Badges relates both to people having them who should not and to the misuse of 'legitimately' issued badges by people other than those to whom the badge was given.

As an earlier study (by the Automobile Association, 1992) found, the majority of disabled people themselves think that the scheme is abused and that measures should be taken both to limit issue to those who really need Orange Badges and to control the use of them more effectively.

That there is abuse of the scheme should not be taken as an argument for discontinuing Orange Badges or regarding them as largely misused and therefore of little importance. For those people who cannot walk at all, or who have very considerable difficulty walking, they are an essential component in their personal mobility. It should be remembered that a substantial proportion of people who (legitimately) hold an Orange Badge are not car drivers but travel as passengers in their household car (which may be specially adapted) or another car since the permit applies to the individual not the vehicle.

3.2 Motability and the Provision of Adapted Cars

The Orange Badge scheme discussed above is intended to enable disabled people to use their cars free from some of the restrictions which apply to able-bodied people. For some disabled people, however, it is not possible to use a conventional car, either as a driver or as a passenger; some sort of adaptation of the car is needed.

The need for a vehicle adapted to the requirements of disabled drivers was recognised many years ago when the Invalid Vehicle Service was introduced. This service provided specially adapted three-wheeler vehicles and, although those vehicles were criticised, rightly, for some short-comings, they nevertheless gave a much improved level of personal mobility to people with quite severe disablement.

When the scheme was closed to new drivers in 1976 there were 18,000 of these vehicles in use in England. There are now 820 on the road and numbers continue to decline. The cessation of the service saw the introduction of the Mobility Allowance, available equitably to both passengers and drivers, and also the increasingly swift development of modifications to conventional cars to enable them to be used by disabled people, either as driver or as passenger.

The Mobility Allowance (now the higher rate mobility component of the Disability Living Allowance) was an amount paid to disabled people in recognition of the fact that, as well as losing the Invalid Vehicle Service, their costs of travel were rather greater journey-for-journey than those of able-bodied people. Although the allowance was, and still is, not specific in the sense that recipients must spend it on transport, many choose to do so through the Motability scheme.

Motability was set up in 1977; it is essentially a government supported charity and it provides the means for disabled people to use their Mobility Allowance or component to acquire a vehicle selected or modified to meet their specific needs. Since its establishment, Motability has provided over 750,000 cars, the bulk of them on contract hire. At present it has a "live fleet" of about 350,000 cars.

It is of some relevance to the issues dealt with in this paper that Motability has recognised that one problem it faces is that of providing vehicles for people who cannot transfer from their wheelchair to a car seat or who can only do so with great difficulty and discomfort. Modified vehicles can be provided to meet these needs, but they are large ( for example based on a Ford Transit van) and expensive. From commissioned research, Motability has established that there is a demand for a smaller vehicle capable of being used by a driver or passenger seated in a wheelchair. At the time of writing further research has just started with the objective of defining design parameters for a vehicle of this kind and suggesting which mass-produced vehicles could be used, in suitably adapted form, to satisfy this market.

3.3 Parking

The usefulness of a car to more severely disabled people can be negated to considerable extent if there is inadequate parking space at destinations. The Orange Badge scheme obviously helps in this respect by allowing holders to park on street where other motorists would not be permitted. However, especially for disabled car users who need to park for longer periods, it is important to have adequate parking provision both on- and off-street. Adequate in this sense means both sufficient numbers of parking spaces and also sufficient wider bays of the type needed by wheelchair users.

One of the ways of reducing the generality of car use is to reduce the amount of parking space, particularly long term. If, or when, this policy is adopted it should not result in a decrease in spaces reserved for the sole use of Orange Badge holders; such provision really needs to be taken out of the more general consideration of parking provision and treated as a separate issue. In parenthesis, though, the provision of space for disabled car users also needs to be monitored and the use of that space by unauthorised people prevented.

It seems likely that further limitations on both on- and off-street public parking space will be made in tandem with increases in parking charges. Most car users will have the option of continuing to use the space and pay the higher charges or to use an alternative mode, but severely disabled car users will often not have this choice. They will, force majeure, have to pay more unless local authorities take care to exempt them from such charges. There is a specific problem associated with the four inner London boroughs where the otherwise national Orange Badge scheme does not operate (the Cities of London and Westminster, the Royal Borough of Chelsea and Kensington and a part of the London Borough of Camden). Until such time as the Orange Badge scheme is recognised in these areas, severely disabled car users should be exempted from any future increases in parking charges.

Disabled people have noted with dismay the growing number of local parking schemes which undermine the national nature of the Orange Badge scheme. It is considered that local schemes should be withdrawn in favour of the national scheme.

Advocacy for the provision of appropriate parking space should not be taken to mean a carte blanche for Orange Badge holders to park anywhere. It is particularly important that parking should not be permitted at bus stops and in bus lanes, where it can interfere with the effective operation and use of buses.

3.4 Shopmobility

Shopmobility schemes have grown at a very rapid rate since the first one was introduced in Milton Keynes in 1979 and now number some 190 (September 1997). Many schemes provide manual wheelchairs and volunteer escorts, others additionally provide powered wheelchairs and scooters. They are often based in or close to car parking areas or by public transport terminals and enable people who find it difficult to move around a shopping area to do so easily and independently. They cater for people with temporary disabilities as well as those with long term disabilities; anyone with a mobility handicap can use them, regardless of their place of residence.

The schemes are usually funded by local authorities, local businesses and/or local charities, some are staffed by volunteers others have some paid staff. Each Shopmobility scheme is autonomous and consequently has its own characteristics. All can use signs with the word 'Shopmobility', but certain conditions must be met before a scheme is allowed to use the Department of Transport's approved Shopmobility symbol on highway signs.

These conditions include:

• The scheme is open to everyone with a mobility handicap, whether temporary or permanent, regardless of their place of residence
• It has both manual and powered wheelchairs and scooters available
• That car parking is provided within 40 metres of the office for scheme members (whether or not they hold an Orange Badge)
• The scheme operates for at least four hours on normal shopping days and its opening and closing times are publicised.
• The speed with which these schemes have grown is a measure both of the need for this type of service and Shopmobility's success in meeting that need. However, Shopmobility does not help everyone with a mobility handicap.

People who use powered scooters have to be able to stand in order to get on and off them. Indeed, in discussing the choice of powered wheelchair and scooter for a Shopmobility scheme, it is suggested in the National Federation of Shopmobility Schemes Guidelines that it should be possible to disable them by removing a key or fuse so that they can be left safely unattended outside a shop while the driver is inside.

Shopmobility clients are not habitual users of wheelchairs. In the main they are people who, with or without any weight of shopping, have difficulty walking any great distance and can make use of a powered wheelchair or scooter or by being pushed in a manual chair.

People who are severely disabled and cannot stand or walk at all - people who are habitual users of wheelchairs, whether powered or manual, or both - cannot easily use Shopmobility because they need to use their own wheelchairs. These people find it impossible or highly uncomfortable and inconvenient to use wheelchairs other than those they habitually use.

3.5 Electric Buggy Services

Another group of people - ambulant disabled who have difficulty walking but don't want to use a wheelchair - could be helped by the type of service started in Woking town centre.

This uses a small electrically powered vehicle, capable of carrying four or five people, which runs on a semi-scheduled service through the pedestrianised area of Woking town centre. As the Leeds study mentioned in Section 2 made clear, quite a lot of disabled people can walk but only over fairly short distances. A shopping trip which involves going from one side of a town centre precinct to the other may well be more than some ambulant disabled people can manage, especially once they are carrying shopping. The Woking buggy service enables these people to cover the whole of the shopping area while limiting the distances they have to walk.

At present the only service of this kind in operation is the one pioneered by Woking Borough Council, though there are services similar in principle and again using small electric buggies in some of the larger airports and rail stations. Research initiated by DETR into the potential market for buggy services is currently nearing completion. Preliminary conclusions from this suggest that there would be a role for a buggy service where the length of pedestrianised shopping streets exceed one kilometre; a measure which would imply that about a hundred or so centres would be appropriate places for this kind of service. In parenthesis, it should be noted that these buggy services cannot be used by a person travelling in a wheelchair, though this may change in the future if new designs of buggies are developed.

3.6 Public Transport: Mainstream Services

There has been progress in the development of mainstream public transport services accessible to disabled people. The production of the DPTAC recommended guidelines for the design of buses used on local services some ten years ago, has seen a substantial improvement of these vehicles for ambulant disabled and visually-handicapped people. Light rapid transit systems like Docklands Light Rail and Manchester Metro have been built to be fully accessible from conception. Considerable progress has been made on introducing wheelchair accessible trains, initially on InterCity services, subsequently on local services as old 'slam door' rolling stock is taken out of service. London Transport Underground has adopted a policy of improving access as its stations are refurbished and modernised.

Most of these initiatives towards improving access started during the nineteen eighties and were in recognition of the needs - and rights - of disabled people, but were not the consequence of specific mandatory legislation.

That changed with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. There is no point in repeating the provisions of this act, since they are well known, but the regulations under that act are; particularly the compliance dates provisionally selected. These are:

• For buses used in local service - all newly registered vehicles to comply by 2002, all in service to comply by 2017
• For coaches - all newly registered vehicles to comply by 2005, full compliance possibly 10 or 12 years later
• For trains, all rolling stock of a new type to comply by 1999
• For taxis - all newly licensed vehicles to comply by 2002, all in service to comply by 2012.

Thus within a period of twenty years all road-based public services should be accessible to disabled people, including wheelchair users, as should a substantial proportion of heavy rail services.

3.7 Park and Ride Schemes

Disabled people with severe walking difficulties have special needs in relation to park and ride schemes.

Park and ride schemes can be used to promote the use of public transport as an alternative to cars for radial access into towns and city centres. The results of a research programme carried out by the Transport Research Laboratory into the effectiveness of park and ride suggested that schemes tend to produce greater environmental benefits when combined with restrictions on car access, especially on car parking in the town centre (referred to in paragraph [14.27] of the previous Government's report: Transport the Way Forward: The Government's Response to the Transport Debate).

Oxford and York were cited as examples of successful park and ride schemes. Unfortunately the adverse effects for disabled people with severe walking difficulties of restrictions on car access associated with both schemes were not mentioned. The report failed to mention the fact that parts of Oxford and York are now virtually inaccessible to people with severe walking difficulties.

Support of park and ride schemes as part of local transport strategies must be conditional upon meeting clear requirements to ensure that the schemes are fully accessible to disabled people with severe walking difficulties.

These requirements relate both to the design of the buses used and the way the buses are scheduled. Obviously, if disabled people are expected to use park and ride schemes - and private cars are banned from the area covered by the schemes - it is essential to ensure that all the buses are fully accessible to both people in wheelchairs and ambulant disabled people. Less obvious is the fact that the routes covered and stopping points must put all key destinations throughout the whole of the area within the mobility ranges of people with severe walking difficulties. If one or other condition is not met, then the private cars or vans of disabled people should not be banned from the area in question.

3.8 Public Transport - Services Designed for Disabled People

Recognition of the particular problems faced by disabled people, especially when confronted with mainstream public transport services that even now are generally not accessible to more severely disabled people, has led to the development of large numbers of special services, including dial-a-ride, community transport services, mobility buses and a host of voluntary car and minibus services.

The total number of such services is not known, but certainly runs into many hundreds. Many receive financial support from local authorities, some require membership, there are varying eligibility riteria (or none), some make a charge to passengers others do not, some have wheelchair-accessiblevehicles others do not. The variety of services is probably almost as great as the number.

They provide an important component of mobility for disabled people - particularly for those who do not have access to a private car - and will have a continuing though perhaps different role as mainstream public transport becomes more accessible. However, as is noted later, all these special services have their limitations.

Updated: 9 November 2000

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