Attitudes of disabled people to community transport:
Research study (carried out Nov - Dec 2002)

Community Transport Provision and Priority for Improvement

Who should have responsibility for designing passenger transport services?

The organisation or group that most respondents feel should have responsibility for designing passenger transport services is local government (chosen by 47% overall). Also important in this process are community groups, public transport operators and ordinary people themselves (each selected by 39%).

• There are some noticeable differences by location, with disabled people in London having quite different opinions to those elsewhere. For example, respondents in the Capital are much less likely to believe that ordinary people should be involved in designing passenger transport services (21% compared with 41% in both urban and rural locations). Instead, Londoners are more likely to say that responsibility should lie with public transport operators, local government and central government (74%, 57% and 48% respectively).

Q 25: Which, if any, of the following do you think should have responsibility for designing passenger transport services?

Source: MORI

Around one in five of disabled people are involved in any community or voluntary groups that provide transport services (10 respondents in total). The type of community transport services range from Dial-a-ride to private cars.

The penultimate question asked respondents, without prompting, what would have to improve for them to consider using community transport services more. The top answer is better/more information about services, chosen by 25%. Other key priorities are reliability and punctuality, transport being accessible for all types of disabilities (which was mentioned only by those with visual impairments and learning disabilities) and the drivers being more helpful and friendly (15%, 14% and 13% respectively). In addition, fourteen per cent say that they would not use community transport anyway.

Finally, respondents were given the opportunity to state any further comments they had to make about community transport services. Among those who did, similar issues were raised as in the previous question with the top answer being the need for more helpful and friendly drivers. Therefore, despite community transport staff being described positively as stated earlier, improving staff attitudes is a key priority.

Published: 28 June 2004

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