Evidence to inquiry exposes ‘inadequate’ consequences of transport discrimination

Disabled campaigners have exposed the widespread – and unpunished – discrimination that passengers face across the rail, bus and taxi sectors, in written evidence to an MPs’ inquiry.

Many of the concerns were focused on the rail sector, with evidence highlighting the distress caused by delays, significant access barriers, and the repeated failure to enforce breaches of the Equality Act.

The evidence is included in more than 60 written submissions to an ongoing inquiry by the Commons transport committee into accessible transport and the legal obligations of the transport industry.

In its submission, the disabled people’s organisation Transport for All described the “weak language, limited implementation, and inadequate legal consequences” of current legislation on accessible transport.

It said that disabled people faced “significant barriers on every mode of transport” and warned that regulators “do not have significant enough powers” to enforce legal obligations.

It particularly pointed to rail companies, which it said “flagrantly breach the Equality Act”.

Transport for All said the fines handed to those companies that breached the act were “insufficient to ensuring effective enforcement”, and it called for the penalty for discrimination to be “equal to the seriousness of the offence”.

Christiane Link, a disabled consultant, who has advised the transport industry on access for more than 20 years, told the committee in her written evidence that the key issue for disabled rail passengers was the unreliability of the assisted travel service.

She said these failures were a “health and safety issue and a significant barrier” for disabled people, some of whom are forced to try to disembark trains themselves, which has “severe safety implications”.

She said the rail industry should mirror the air travel sector, where airports must report to the regulator each time a passenger misses a flight because assistance was not provided on time.

Link said the Department for Transport (DfT) and the public “should have constant and transparent information about why failed assists are happening and where”.

And she said that “performative” actions by the rail industry such as lighting up stations in purple once a year or providing “sunflower buggies” should no longer receive public funding because they are “a smokescreen for poor service and a waste of taxpayers’ money”.

She also called for all new train carriages to provide level boarding.

Another disabled campaigner, Tony Jennings, co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding and co-chair of the Avanti accessibility panel, also spoke of the importance of only buying new rail carriages that offered level boarding.

He said: “The DfT need to specify low floored trains in future with a legislative deadline and rolling programme to modify platforms to the UK standard to deliver level boarding in a reasonable timescale.”

He said train companies should be “heavily fined” and risk losing their franchise if they fail to enforce access laws in areas such as the safety of ramps, booking wheelchair spaces and failing to provide passenger assistance.

Jennings said: “Disabled people are fed up with complaining when passenger assistance fails when nothing changes.

“Compensation or free tickets is pointless if lessons aren’t learnt and processes and [accessible travel policies] aren’t enforced.”

He added: “The government need to take equal access seriously, action and investment is needed now to deliver an inclusive railway that is fit for purpose.”

Accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley submitted written evidence that covered buses, taxis, the rail sector, air travel and London Underground.

He warned that, despite the “23-year-old regulations on the physical accessibility of buses and coaches and accessibility obligations on drivers, mass noncompliance with the regulations has gone unnoticed and unenforced”.

He told the committee: “There is no meaningful mechanism for discriminated-against disabled people to challenge or enforce when providers fail to comply with our rights, or when enforcers and regulators fail to enforce them.

“Disabled people need and deserve statutory bodies to reliably and simply realise and enforce our rights to access buses and coaches.”

Paulley said the laws on the accessibility of taxis were “a mess, as are the regulatory and enforcement mechanisms”, which “let disabled people down, resulting in colossal distress and iniquity”.

And he said that rail station accessibility information systems were “not fit for purpose”, while the “drive for destaffing stations creates specific problems for disabled people, especially where the station is served by driver-only trains”.

The disabled people’s organisation Wheels for Wellbeing said complaints processes were often “inaccessible, time-consuming and rarely result in any significant change to practice or provision”.

It told the committee in its written evidence: “Disabled people are often fobbed off with paltry compensation such as a discounted or free train ticket for their next journey.

“Because legal action is so costly and time and energy consuming, few Disabled people are in a position to undertake it.”

The disabled women’s organisation WinVisible told the committee that inaccessibility and understaffing of transport was “a huge problem”.

It wrote: “Many of us can’t go where we want, when we want to or need to. We spend a lot of time worrying about journeys beforehand and arranging them. We have to allow extra time for the journeys themselves, and they are stressful.

“It is clear that the current legislation is not effective, neither is it being enforced by regulators.”

It told the committee that cuts to rail staff and asking them to carry out “multiple roles” would lead to them becoming “overworked, distracted and tired from long shifts” and would result in “more preventable deaths and injuries”.

Iain Stewart, the transport committee’s chair and a Conservative MP, said: “The huge amount of written evidence we received on accessible transport has made it clear that current legislation doesn’t do enough to support disabled people who need to safely use buses, trains or even pavements to get around and live their lives.

“Many people are denied the ability to travel as easily as they should and end up avoiding going out altogether, causing them to miss out on socialising and work opportunities.

“The evidence has also shown the importance of our inquiry investigating legal obligations and enforcement of accessible transport legislation.

“Currently, the enforcement of accessibility rules and laws is inadequate, and passengers shouldn’t shoulder the expensive and stressful burden of bringing court action against operators when they are mistreated.”

Picture by Office of Rail and Road

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