ITS initiatives provide travel information for disabled passengers

David Crawford investigates initiatives and issues in travel information for disabled passengers.

1819 World Health Organisation estimates suggest that 10% of the global population live with a disability. This can impact directly on their mobility, with implications for their independence; keeping active; and travelling to work, education and social activities; as well as the accessibility of information necessary to aid mobility.

The EU-supported ‘6984 Cardiac’ project (Coordination Action in R&D in Accessible & Assistive ICT) has reported proportions of the European population that experience difficulty in accessing standard travel information, or need specific delivery to meet their needs (see table below). The overall issue goes wider, however, as some people have multiple impairments and there are clear links with ageing. A quick survey of current activity in Europe throws up some imaginative ITS-based initiatives.

Wienerlinien, the public transport operator for the Austrian capital of Vienna, is planning an advanced version of its acoustic POPTIS (Pre-On-Post-Trip-Information-System) designed to encourage the blind and visually impaired to use its network. The database, which carries details of all possible trips, pre-tested by typical users and mobility consultants, is accessible on the www.wienerlinien.at website in a special barrier-free section, with files designed for screenreader programmes to allow text-to-speech output.

Users can navigate pre-trip on their home computers, and during their journeys via a pocket CD player or mobile phone with the journey pre-loaded. The system aims to explain each stage of a journey, including interchanges, which users can store for future use; and integrates real-time arrivals (and, for wheelchair users, alerts as to whether the next bus is low-floor). A new version, planned for demonstration at the 2012 6456 ITS World Congress in Vienna will incorporate GPS coordinates for the start and finish of public transport trips, to allow handovers to outdoor navigation systems.

The UK company Screenreader, which specialises in making computers and smartphones more accessible for the blind and partially-sighted, has developed the Georgie app for guiding users countrywide to their nearest bus stop; for telling them when the next scheduled bus is due; and announcing stops as these come up during their journey. It updates timetable information via external data feeds, but does not offer real-time advice on how services are running. It also enables users to record details of landmarks and hazards found on journeys.

Disability	%
Blind	0.4
Poor vision	1.5
Deaf	0.1
Hard or hearing	6.0	Proportions of people needing specific help with travel information as reported by the CARDIAC project
Wheelchair user	0.4
Otherwise mobility impaired	5.0

Greater Paris public transport operator 6989 Stif has launched a pioneering free email and/or SMS text alert service to notify wheelchair users of lift breakdowns at stations. This can cover up to five stations at a time, and relays the starts and ends of breakdown or maintenance periods. Other European operators seem slow to follow suit.  

The Frankfurt public transport operator 6987 rmv has introduced a system telling wheelchair users whether they will be able to access and leave platforms. This currently covers 70% of trips, but further progress is proving slow.

For the deaf, whose travel problems are often less widely publicised, Hungarian startup MSL (Mobile Sign Language) Accessibility has broken new ground with its jel-M sign language travel aid, introduced at the July 2012 DeafNation World Expo in Las Vegas, US. It starts with the premise that sign-language is the ‘native language’ of the deaf and offers videos via mobile applications. It says pilots in Eastern Europe have met with positive feedback and now hopes to generate interest in the North American market.

Drivers too

For drivers as well as public transport users, disabled UK entrepreneur Gary McFarlane has developed the 6981 Assist-mi smartphone app, designed to make driving and navigation easier for the mobility impaired. Due for launch on 21 November 2012, after securing  investment funding, this is being claimed as the first mobile phone location-based service to offer disability-related information and support access for people on the move.

Early offers will cover parking, refuelling, and rail and airport access. In a scheme being developed with four central London local authorities, drivers will be able navigate their way to  a parking space or garage.

They will be able to send advance warnings requesting help and indicate imminent arrival by passing through a geofence, with the Assist-Mi technology interfacing with the operator’s control system.

McFarlane told 1846 ITS International: “The London boroughs are very keen on this following on from the spirit of the 2012 Paralympics.” He is also in discussions on similar schemes with a fuel station chain, and rail and airport operators.

Another category of drivers needing support consists of the ageing, who may be thinking of giving up their cars on grounds of cost or safety, but have grown unfamiliar with public transport.

The elderly are being targeted by the 2012-2015 EU-supported Assistant project launched in July this year to help ‘senior travellers’ navigate in towns.

Starting on the premise that many of today’s retired people are familiar with using home computers, laptops and the internet, the aim is to equip them to plan, on-line and in detail, a personal multi-stage, multi-modal journey by public transport, and then support them during the journey.

Pilots are in the planning stage in Austria, France and Spain. The intended outcome is a smartphone app using proven existing technology as far as possible and supported in use by a subscription-based maintenance and updating service sold by the supplier.

Underlying issues

Alongside these and equally welcome initiatives, some important underlying issues are gaining attention. The market is huge, fragmented and not necessarily clearly categorised. A 2011 report by the Vienna Institute for Transport Logistics Management questions the assumption that visually-impaired people have the same needs as the blind. “Measures taken for the blind do not help partially sighted people as the latter still rely on their eyesight while using public transport, whereas blind people have to replace this sense. People with impaired sight have specific mobility-related needs, which deserve more attention,” says the report, which also suggests that treating needs more specifically could save transport operators money.  

Not all initiatives, some intensively researched by industrial and academic joint projects, secure the finance necessary to get them to market. A 2012 report from the EU-supported ‘CARDIAC’ project (Coordination Action in R&D in Accessible & Assistive ICT) warns: ‘For industrial partners, the considerable cost of converting a prototype to a production item has proved prohibitive.’ The CARDIAC report calls for knowledge built to be made generally available if no product results from any project.

Thirdly, there are risks of over-specialisation and the production of too much ‘kit’. Not all products can sit on a smartphone, and smartphone apps could be more versatile if the databases they access were better designed. CARDIAC report co-author Dr John Gill foresees a trend towards more inclusively-planned solutions. (A good existing example is Transport for London’s iBus, whose on-board ‘next stop’ audio visual displays and announcements are designed to make bus travel easier for all, including visually or hearing impaired passengers and those with learning disabilities).

At a railway station, for example, Gill envisages the passenger using a smartphone to access a database giving scheduled and predicted arrival and the platform number. Provided that the database is designed from the outset for dual-format operation, the information could be displayed visually, with an inbuilt audio alternative also giving guidance to the correct platform.