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Accessible Public Transport and Wayfinding For Vision Impaired Users

Written by Joshue O Connor, Fiona Kelty and Hilary Casey Friday, 11 June 2010

The issue of accessible public transport is one that is very important to blind and vision impaired users, and to us in the NCBI Centre for Inclusive Technology! We want to see progress towards making accessing information about these services more easily available. So what are we doing about it?

There are several ‘strings’ to the bow that relate to the whole area of accessible public transport, and first we would like to give you an overview of some related work that others in NCBI are doing.

Dublin Bus Users Group

Hilary Casey (NCBI Community Resource Worker) has been on the Users' group of Dublin Bus for nearly four years now. The Users' groups were set up by the various transport companies as a way of consulting with people with disabilities and their representative organisations in relation to access to their services. They meet four times a year and other representatives would come from Deaf Hear, Irish Guide Dogs For the Blind, St Michael's House and the Irish Wheelchair Association. At the moment, Hilary represents the issues, concerns and ideas of people with sight loss using the bus in Dublin.

Therefore, at this time of change and development from Dublin Bus with both the Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) and Network Direct Projects being launched, Hilary would be feeding back to both Dublin Bus and Fiona Kelty (NCBI's Access Co-ordinator) any issues raised in relation to these projects and how they will affect people who are blind and vision impaired. One of these issues is that Dublin Bus will soon have cuffs on bus poles that are designed with good high colour contrast to be easily seen by people with vision impairments, as well as Braille, so that a person can text on their mobile phone a dedicated number to gain information on the buses that use any stop.

Hilary also responds directly to feedback from the public, and when people call with concerns about any of these new projects Hilary ensures that she has enough information to solve their query or knows where to direct them if she can’t. For example as a result of requesting information about a bus route, Dolores Quinn, Accessibility Officer for Dublin Bus, held a Network Direct meeting and NCBI were given a phone line and email address that passengers could contact directly about the Network Direct project. So if Hilary cannot answer a person's query, she is sure to know someone who can.

Improvements to Wayfinding in Dublin

Fiona Kelty (NCBI's Access Co-ordinator), has been very involved with the area of accessible public transport and accessible wayfinding for many years. She brings a lot of experience to the table and has been involved in consultation with a wide range of projects, these have included:

Busaras Access Audits

In May 2005 Des Murphy, NCBI’s representative on the Bus Eireann User Group, asked Fiona to carry out an Access Audit of Busaras (Dublin's main bus station). This resulted in three audits by Fiona and work has been subsequently done by Bus Eireann to make the station more accessible in order to bring Busaras up to the minimum accessibility standards specified in Part M of the Building Regulations, 2000.

In 2008, follow on involvement with the National Disability Authority (NDA) resulted in meetings between Bus Eireann and Dublin City Council (DCC). Donie O’Shea, the NDAs Senior Policy & Public Affairs Advisor, agreed to facilitate these meetings.

DCC stated that because the Luas runs past Busaras (and has a stop there) it is not possible to have audible pedestrian lights at the main entrance to Busaras. This is because of the length of the Luas, and the distance between that entrance and the nearest road junction. If the Luas stopped at the main entrance, it would block the junction behind. However, there are pedestrian crossings (complete with audible signals) nearby, so it is possible for someone with impaired vision to cross the roads safely and independently going to and from Busaras.

Because most people naturally try to cross the road as they leave the bus station, rather than looking around the corner for a safer crossing point, Des Murphy suggested that a ‘Talking Kiosk’ should be provided at each side of the main entrance to Busaras, which would direct people to the nearest audible pedestrian crossing.

Talking Kiosk and the Smart City Travel Project

The NDA and DCC held a Conference on 13th October 2008 called "Access and the City" at which a very impressive and interesting piece of Wayfinding technology was introduced. This is the 'Talking Kiosk' which is currently in use at the Staten Island Ferry Port in the U.S.A. There is a tactile as well as an audible component to the Kiosk which assists understanding. People with impaired vision find it very useful.

A few meetings were subsequently called by Des Murphy which resulted in the ‘Smart City Travel Project’, through the end of 2008 and into Spring of 2009. These meetings were attended by Paul Meighan of Bus Eireann, Donie O’Shea of the NDA, Fiona Kelty and Joshue O Connor of NCBI Centre For Inclusive Technology. Some meetings were attended by Dr. Donal Fitzpatrick and Declan McMullen of DCU. We discussed the possibility of installing one or two such Kiosks at Busaras.

Follow-up work was undertaken by CFIT to contact the supplier of the kiosks to inquire whether something similar could be constructed and installed by them for us. A price was quoted of €25,000 per kiosk.

There is a huge footfall at Busaras. 10 million people a year go through the station, so the advertising potential is excellent and getting a private company to pay for the installation was suggested. There were also discussions on what sort of information the kiosk should provide. There was general agreement that the kiosks should also direct people to important landmarks of cultural and sporting interest, and that the audible information should be available in several different languages.

This project has stalled somewhat but DCC are planning to install a Wayfinding System in Dublin city, and there may be an opportunity to tie this project in with theirs.

Automatic Vehicle Location and Control (AVLC) and Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI)

There is also currently a project underway to implement a system that will track all vehicles in the Dublin Bus fleet and provide information to customers in real time. There are two distinct aspects to this project. Firstly, the Automatic Vehicle Location and Control (AVLC) system will provide information about where a bus is at any time that can be used by Dublin Bus for scheduling, route planning etc.

Secondly, the Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) system uses the data generated by the AVLC system to provide much needed information to the general public. Under this system each bus in the Dublin Bus fleet will have a computer satellite tracking system that will allow information of its whereabouts to made available to the public.

Dublin bus will then be able to compare actual services with the schedules, identify gaps in services and take corrective actions. This information can also be made available to the public so you can find out where a bus is, when it will be due and so on.

Provision of Real Time Passenger Information

The AVLC system will generate the necessary data that can be used for the provision of information to the public.

Traffic Light Priority

Dublin Bus is working with local authorities in the Dublin area to develop a link between the AVLC system and the traffic light management system to provide priority to buses at traffic light controlled junctions.

Real Time Information at Bus Stops

Dublin Bus is also collaborating with Dublin City Council to implement an infrastructure of bus stop information display units that will display real time predictions of bus arrival times at bus stops.

System Deployment

Following a public procurement process, a contract for the AVLC system was awarded to German company, INIT GmbH, a subsidiary of init innovation in traffic systems AG. Following a period of extensive testing on a pilot route (route 123) the first phase of implementation was completed in April 2010, with the system being commissioned on all routes operating from Summerhill depot.

The system will be rolled out on a depot by depot basis, with full deployment across the entire Dublin Bus fleet planned for the end of 2010. Deployment of real time information (Web, SMS, roadside displays) will follow the rollout of the AVLC system. Early testing of prototypes will commence during the implementation phase, with full scale deployment to follow.

DCC Co-ordination

DCC are co-ordinating many of these accessible real time projects, as they are responsible for the overall transport strategy for the city. They hope to connect several of these real time systems into a cohesive travel network.

NCBI Centre For Inclusive Technology are involved in this project with DCC. We are currently doing some research into mobile phone use among blind and vision impaired users to see which platforms are in wide use by the community. We will also be working with DCC to ensure that the RTPI website and any mobile applications that are rolled out to the public will be fully accessible to blind and vision impaired users.

So we hope this gives you a flavour of some of the things that are going on in relation to accessible public transport in Ireland.