Restrictions on Personal Vehicular Transport

6. Conclusions and recommendations

This paper has discussed the mobility problems that disabled people, particularly those who have to use a wheelchair, face when travelling. The basic premise of the paper is that there are strong arguments for encouraging greater use of public transport (and walking and cycling) and reducing reliance on the private car. As part of this process, and an aspect of very real value to disabled people as a whole, the regulations under the Disability Discrimination Act are also seen as an important means of enabling disabled people to play their part in ensuring that there is a switch from private to public transport.

However, there is a group within the six million plus disabled people whose mobility could be put at risk if policies restricting use of private cars are introduced in blanket fashion. The number of people who fall within this group cannot be measured with precision: it is not large but it is of some significance.

The following recommendations are made to protect the mobility of this group of people:

1. Clearly identifiable categories of disabled people with severe walking difficulties whose needs must be met should be established nationally and, unlike the current situation with the Orange Badge Scheme, strictly adhered to locally.
2. It is understood that sometime within the next three to five years a common European "Orange Badge" will be introduced. The introduction of this, which will require legislation in the UK, could offer the opportunity both to determine those people who really justify having an Orange Badge (or its European equivalent) and to make the more strictly limited number of permit holders exempt from general restrictions placed on private car use.
3. The objective should be the establishment of a national Orange Badge Scheme which includes Central London. Such a scheme would mean the withdrawal of local schemes in favour of the national one.
4. A full review of the Orange Badge scheme should be carried out as soon as possible to tighten the eligibility criteria and to deal more effectively with those who abuse the scheme. The DPTAC Personal Mobility Working Group are preparing a paper on this issue which will be submitted to Ministers shortly.
5. If road pricing is introduced as a means of discouraging people from using cars, the fact that some more severely disabled car users have no alternative but to continue using a car should be recognised by exempting them from the charges or applying a substantially reduced tariff.
6. If controls are introduced to limit access to town and city centres then, for the same reason given in (5), severely disabled people should be exempted from these restrictions.
7. Any general reduction made in the provision of public car parking in urban centres should not result in an equivalent reduction in parking spaces for severely disabled people.
8. Any future taxes levied on business parking spaces should exclude those spaces specifically allocated for severely disabled car users.
9. When introducing or extending pedestrianised areas, local authorities should make provision for car parking space for severely disabled car users in such a way that they have satisfactory access to all parts of the pedestrian area.
10. To encourage as much use as possible by disabled people of increasingly accessible mainstream public transport, adequate and reasonably priced parking space should be made available at public transport terminals.
11. In developing their policies on control of traffic and parking, local authorities should be required to take account of, and make appropriate provision for, the needs of severely disabled car users.
12. Transport services designed particularly with the needs of disabled people in mind (for example, Dial-a-Ride and Community Transport) make a valuable contribution to personal mobility, especially for those people without access to a car. Their continued development should be encouraged.

These recommendations are made as contributions to overcoming the two key problems that people with more severe levels of disability face: a lack of real alternatives to the private car and income levels that are below the national average. The scale of the exemptions proposed is numerically small - perhaps around one person in a hundred would qualify - but to those people the exemptions will be essential.

In conclusion, DPTAC welcomes government initiatives to improve the accessibility of all forms of public transport and to develop a more balanced mix of public and private transport, but asks that the needs of more severely disabled car users should not be forgotten as these policies are developed and implemented.

Updated: 9 November 2000

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