Welcome to Accessibility and Inclusion Forum

Chair: Ann Frye FCILT

The purpose of the Forum is to ensure that the changing needs of the UK’s large and growing population of older and disabled people are properly understood and reflected in the development of transport policy and the design and delivery of transport services across all modes and sectors at both national and local levels.

Accessibility to public transport and to the pedestrian environment are both an economic and a social imperative. Continuing mobility is key to enabling disabled and older people to remain independent and able to contribute both directly and indirectly to the country’s economy.

To view the Forums Terms of Reference please click here.

The Accessibility and Inclusion Forum meets on a regular basis with participants attending both in person and online.  New members are always welcome. A number of Forum members have lived experience of disability as well as professional expertise.

Discussions at the Forum cover all transport modes. Recent topics have included the impact of driver only operated trains on older and disabled travellers and issues facing disabled and older people dependent on rural bus services.

Previous seminars run by the Forum include: 

• Missing the Bus: Can Older and Disabled People Get on Board? - For many disabled and older people, bus travel remains a major challenge. Although buses in many areas are becoming more accessible, getting to the bus stop, getting on board, and getting information about services all remain among the challenges facing people with mobility difficulties or vision impairments, for example. This webinar will look at the Government’s Bus Strategy from the perspective of older and disabled people and will review progress and attitudes towards making bus travel more inclusive. It will focus particularly on issues affecting rural bus services on which many disabled and older people depend. To view presentation from this webinar, see below under Reports and Presentations
• Joined Up Journeys – Integration and Interchange: Making Travel Workable for Disabled and Older People - The concept of transport chains makes clear that, where any link in the journey chain is missing or broken, it can prevent a person from travelling. This one-day seminar explored the challenges faced by disabled and older people and discussed practical solutions and examples of good practice to achieve joined up journeys. Presentations included perspectives from travellers with disabilities and transport providers as well as information on new research and pilot projects. 
• Out of Sight, Out of Mind – This seminar set out to explore the needs of people whose disabilities are “hidden” and to discuss what can and should be done to recognise them more routinely and sensitively, with contributions from academics, experts and practitioners as well as disabled public transport users, charities and campaigners.
• Is Technology Leaving Older and Disabled Travellers behind? This one-day seminar explored the pros and cons of new technology as it affects the ability of older and disabled people to travel.
• Train Journey Experiences - With the subject of Driver Only Operation very much in the public eye, this is an account of a series of rail journeys undertaken on one day by older and disabled people. It reflects both the excellent levels of support available in some areas but also the gaps and problems in others. It is intended to inform the debate in both professional and public circles.
• Older People: Making Sense of the Costs and Benefits of Travel - This seminar took an in-depth look at the reality of enabling older people to remain independently mobile in both urban and rural communities. Topics for discussion included the key role free bus travel plays in enabling older people to support working age families and undertake voluntary work amongst other activities.
• “Older People – Making sense of the costs and benefits of travel”. Topics for discussion included the key part that free bus travel places in enabling many older people to support working age families, and undertake voluntary work among other activities. 
  Speakers also focused on what needs to be done to create environments within which older people can live without support and at how to make sense of the costs of mobility – who pays and who benefits.
• “Empowering Staff, Enabling Passengers” which looked at the importance of training of transport staff to give disabled and older people the confidence to travel. At a time when most transport infrastructure and vehicles are accessible, the weak link is often inadequate training to help drivers and other front line staff understand and empathise with the needs of older and disabled travellers.
• What price accessibility” which focussed on the economic and social challenges of meeting the accessibility needs of an ageing population. Speakers from the transport industries looked at the remaining access challenges for the railways and for buses and discussed whether the requirements for accessibility could be justified in economic terms.

Following the seminar, the Forum produced and published guidance on the business and legal imperatives for training transport staff in disability issues.

Presentations, guidance and training notes from the seminars are available from the Related Useful Information and Links section. For further information, please contact forums@ciltuk.org.uk.