Background

Accessible public land transport is essential to enable disabled people to take part in all aspects of community life: education, work, recreation, access to health services and so on. Approximately 20 per cent of the New Zealand population identify as having some form of impairment that makes it difficult to access current community services. A disproportionate number of disabled people do not have independent access to a motor vehicle so are more reliant on public transport services for mobility.

The inquiry

Disabled people told the Commission that many public land transport services were not accessible and that some local and regional councils were not taking reasonable steps to improve the situation. The Commission held a public inquiry to ensure that everyone’s views on the subject could be taken into account. The report of that inquiry, The Accessible Journey: Report of the Inquiry into Accessible Public Land Transport, was published in 2005.

The Accessible Journey

For public transport services to be accessible, all elements of the journey must be usable by the wide diversity of people that make up New Zealand society. Information, booking services, pavements, transport facilities and vehicles must all be usable by everyone. The people operating the services must deliver them in a way that everyone is comfortable with.

Inquiry findings

The inquiry found there was systemic discrimination against disabled people in the provision of public land transport services. Systemic discrimination is where no one organisation is responsible for the situation but the combination of all the inputs does not result in accessible transport services. The situation is made worse by the complex systems to regulate, plan, fund and provides transport services in New Zealand, with no one being responsible to make sure the whole system works.

Inquiry recommendations

The main recommendations were for:

• National Accessibility Design Standards to cover all aspects of public land transport services and a timetable for implementation
• industry-wide training in disability awareness and disability competency
• disabled people to be involved in all aspects of public transport planning and delivery.

Other recommendations covered changes to legislation; establishing a lead agency to coordinate the necessary changes; a consistent definition of disabled people across government; changes to Total Mobility services; rural and provincial services; community transport services; taxi services and school transport services.

Progress since 2005

Since the inquiry report was published there have been some significant developments:

• The government is committed to the concept of a fully accessible journey and will produce a plan by July 2009 to implement the inquiry recommendations.
• Design standards for urban buses and for wheelchair accessible vans have been improved. Design standards for information services are being developed.
• All new applicants for the driver’s licence necessary to drive buses and taxis must undertake disability awareness training.

The number of super-low-floor buses on urban scheduled routes increases every year; some councils have introduced real-time schedule information, on-board announcements and integrated ticketing; all new train carriages for the Auckland and Wellington commuter services are accessible; and the Ministry of Transport is leading improvements to Total Mobility. In 2008 a trial in Hamilton provided practical information about what accessibility features work best. The trial concluded that accessibility features improved services for all passengers not just disabled passengers.

Accessible Transport 2009 

Despite significant progress there are still major gaps in provision. This year, the Commission, in partnership with disabled people, will carry out a review of progress in implementing the inquiry recommendations.

Your experiences

The Commission is interested in hearing about your experiences of using public transport.

An online survey is available or a PDF version can be printed out to fill in. 

www.hrc.co.nz