CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

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1. INTRODUCTION

The Inquiry process

1.1 The Inquiry, held under section 5(2)(h) of the Human Rights Act 1993, had wide ranging Terms of Reference. Its recommendations cover:

1.2 The report’s findings and recommendations follow a comprehensive and lengthy (two and a half years) Inquiry process, involving a high degree of consultation with and participation by stakeholders. This process included hearing from disabled people, disability advocacy organisations, disability support and service providers, central government agencies, regional and local councils, professional organisations dealing with public transport, industry training organisations, unions, and other public land transport users.

1.3 Material was gathered from focus groups, case studies conducted in Wellington and Christchurch, research into overseas jurisdictions, public meetings, structured meetings of stakeholder groups, public hearings and written submissions. Unless specified as confidential, the submissions received were posted on the Human Rights Commission’s website, all the submissions quoted in this report are available on the Human Rights Commission’s website.
Top A series of reports and consultation documents have been released for stakeholder and public feedback during the Inquiry. The findings and recommendations were then tested in a series of meetings with disabled people, disability advisory groups, central government agencies, regional councils and other interested parties.

Disability and public land transport

1.4 Accessible public land transport can determine for disabled people whether they are able to go out to work, take up educational opportunities, do their own shopping or join in community activities – in other words, to take part in society in ways that most non-disabled people take for granted. The lack of accessible public land transport is one of the biggest barriers to active participation in society faced by disabled people today.

1.5 Disabled people have the same fundamental rights as other citizens. They have the right to enjoy a decent life, as normal and full as possible (Article 3, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons, 1975).

1.6 Increasingly, disability is seen as a result of how society treats its citizens. The New Zealand Disability Strategy reflects a changing understanding of disability for the twenty-first century:

“Disability is not something individuals have. What individuals have is impairments … Disability occurs when one group of people creates barriers by designing a world only for their way of living, taking no account of the impairments other people have.”[1]

1.7 The Strategy goes on to say that disability relates to the interaction between the person with the impairment and the environment. “It has a lot to do with discrimination.”

1.8 This understanding places the barriers to participation experienced by disabled people, including barriers to using public transport, firmly in a human rights context. In Human Rights in New Zealand Today – Ngā Tika Tangata o te Motu, the first comprehensive assessment of how well human rights are respected in New Zealand, the Human Rights Commission found that:

“[I]n spite of the significant progress in developing high-level strategy and the increasingly effective voice of the disabled communities, in their daily lives disabled people remain among the most disadvantaged citizens.”[2]

1.9 Discrimination against disabled people has been unlawful since the passing of the Human Rights Act 1993. Discrimination is unlawful in a number of areas, including the provision of services and access to facilities, and access to government and state sector activities. The Commission has received a significant number of complaints, inquiries and representations about the accessibility of the public land transport system for disabled people.

1.10 Public land transport in New Zealand is a complex area, and this complexity is compounded by urban and rural issues and geographical differences. Two central government agencies, the Ministry of Transport and Land Transport New Zealand (formed from the merger of Transfund New Zealand and the Land Transport Safety Authority), administer legislation and regulations covering public transport service provision. A number of government policy documents relate directly or indirectly to this area.

1.11 Regional councils are responsible for planning and contracting public transport services, including the Total Mobility scheme, which provides a subsidised taxi service to people with serious mobility constraints. Territorial local authorities also have a role in planning for public transport services and in the development of transport-related infrastructure, such as transport exchanges and terminals, bus stops, footpaths, roads and intersections.

1.12 Contracted public transport services are mostly delivered by private companies and are usually funded from a mix of fares, central government funding and regional council funding. There are also a number of public transport services that run on an entirely commercial basis.

1.13 Disabled people are relatively invisible in the legislative, policy and practice framework relating to public land transport provision. They are not a significant voice at either the design end or the service delivery end of the public land transport continuum. Meeting their needs is seldom considered as a core requirement of public land transport planning, funding and implementation. This means that the social and economic advantages of incorporating the lived experience of disability are not embedded into the principles that guide public land transport provision in New Zealand. Nor is the diverse nature of impairment acknowledged. Impairment may take physical, sensory, neurological, psychiatric, intellectual and other forms; and may be permanent, intermittent, temporary and perceived.

1.14 Many relevant government documents, specifically the New Zealand Disability Strategy and the New Zealand Positive Ageing Strategy, make explicit reference to accessible public land transport and envisage a whole of government approach. However, there is no comprehensive approach to implementation and accountability in relation to disabled people. For example, the New Zealand Transport Strategy identified improving “access and mobility” as one of the government’s five key objectives for transport. But it is clear that without specific definition of these terms, they can be, and in fact have been, interpreted without reference to disabled people.

1.15 Significant progress has been made in improving the accessibility of some features of New Zealand’s public land transport system. For example, the country’s main bus builder re-designed an urban bus chassis to produce a super low floor (SLF) bus at no extra cost. A total of $344 million has been invested in new and refurbished vehicles either introduced or planned between 1995 and 2006. There have also been some improvements in the provision of training for passenger service vehicle drivers. Moreover, some local authorities such as Environment Canterbury have acknowledged that getting public land transport design features right at the outset for disabled people incurs minimal extra cost. The concept of universal design promotes improved usage by other citizens, such as older people and mothers with push-chairs.

1.16 Nevertheless, there is evidence of systemic discrimination against disabled people in the provision of public land transport in New Zealand. Systemic discrimination means that aspects of the combined features of conveyances, infrastructure, premises and service information fail disabled people, not that any one person or organisation is to blame.

1.17 The Human Rights Commission has been able to resolve some of the complaints, inquiries and representations it has received using the disputes resolution processes contained in the Human Rights Act 1993. But most of the issues require an active systemic approach to facilitate nationwide access to public land transport services for disabled people.

1.18 New Zealand compares poorly with other countries in relation to progress on accessible public land transport. Research shows that countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the European Union have introduced mandatory accessibility standards, as the most effective, efficient, transparent and fair way of ensuring that public land transport services are delivered in a consistent and compatible manner that provides certainty.

1.19 The significance of accessible public land transport must not be under-estimated. Statistics New Zealand’s Disability Survey (2001) showed that one in five New Zealanders has a disability. The need for accessible public land transport is set to increase as New Zealand’s population ages. Demographic forecasts predict that over the next 50 years, the proportion of people in New Zealand over the age of 65 will more than double, from 12 percent in 1999 to 26 percent in 2051. Rates of disability increase with age, and people lose their access to private transport as they get older. Increasingly, too, disabled people and disability advocates are prepared to challenge the significant structural disadvantages they face because of inaccessible public land transport.

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1.20 This report is timely because of recent changes in public transport legislation, policy and practice, and because major investment and resource decisions are currently being made in the transport sector. Incorporating accessibility requirements in this process will not only produce the most cost effective results, but will contribute to future-proofing the public transport services for at least the next 25 years.

The accessible journey

1.21 Throughout the Inquiry there has been general acceptance by all parties of the concept of the ‘accessible journey’ to analyse the barriers that disabled people face in trying to use public land transport services. For example, the Bus & Coach Association in its submission said, “we support the focus on the ‘accessible journey’ and acknowledge that unless the footpaths, bus stops, railway stations, terminals, interchanges and so on are accessible for disabled people, there will be barriers to mobility”.

1.22 The extent to which the various elements necessary to get from one place to another constitute an accessible journey has been tested in overseas research by assessing each component of the journey, as well as the whole, against four criteria: accessibility, availability, affordability and acceptability.[3]

1.23 Accessibility means “the ease with which all categories of passenger can use public transport”. This includes the “ease of accessing the bus stop or station” and the “ease of finding out about travel possibilities, i.e. the information function”. Availability means “route possibilities, timings and frequency”. Affordability means “the extent to which the financial cost of journeys put an individual or household in the position of having to make sacrifices to travel or the extent to which they can afford to travel when they want to”. Acceptability means “the extent to which potential travellers may be deterred by drivers and driving style, lack of waiting facilities, the state of the vehicles, other members of the travelling public …”. [4]

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1.24 The accessible journey means that all the steps needed for a person to get from their home to their destination and then home again are regarded as linked and of equal importance. If one link is broken or inadequate, the whole journey becomes impractical or impossible. Figure 1 shows the accessible journey and its inter-related steps.

Report structure

1.25 The report is structured so that the voices of disabled people who contributed to the Inquiry are powerfully heard first, in relation to the barriers they face. Next comes discussion of the prevalence of public land transport difficulties for disabled people, including summaries of the available statistical information. This is followed by the experiences of transport providers who participated, and discussion of the challenges faced by legislators, policy agencies and local authorities in relation to regulation and to funding opportunities and constraints. The report then analyses the legislative framework that impacts on accessible public land transport with specific reference to the obligations imposed by the Human Rights Act 1993.

1.26 Where appropriate, the report notes the consensus view of stakeholders. Practical, pragmatic and reasonable solutions to the physical, social and economic costs of inaccessible public land transport are identified. The recommendations and the proposed timeframe for implementation are aimed at helping disabled people who currently experience continued and unjustified barriers to enjoy the same fundamental rights as other citizens.

Figure 1: The Accessible Journey

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