Improving Public Transport for People with Low Vision

Natalie Chan & Taku Fujiyama

UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

Presentation Overview

Transport Institute in the Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering Department

Presentation will be in 2 parts:

1. Investigating public transport for people with low vision

2. London Underground – Platform humps

Investigating Public Transport use for people with low vision

Natalie Chan

UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

Introduction

Transport is vital for access to key activities, services and facilities

Inability to use public transport may result in increased social isolation

It is important that every aspect of a journey is accessible

Even if a small part of the journey is not manageable, the whole “journey chain” is broken

Journey ChainOrigin

Walking to bus stop

Reading bus number

Boarding

BusManoeuvring

on bus

Alighting bus

Destination

Journey chain for a

bus journey

Pedestrian & Transport Navigation

Transport design

Pedestrianenvironment

Personal characteristics

i.e. age and visual ability

? Navigating

with low vision

Why is this research important?

There are almost two million people in the UK living with sight loss (Access Economics 2009)

The number is predicted to increase dramatically (Access Economics 2009)

Despite the prevalence of low visual conditions limited research has been completed about their relationship with mobility and overall navigation

This research project aims to address this gap with a focus on public transport

Questionnaire Development Patient Led research

Life Space Patterns

Conceptual levels in a Life-Space Model (Peel et al. 2005)

Life Space measures the extent and frequency of travel

Vision Ability Level

V Level Vision

V1 Cannot tell by the light where the windows are

V2 Cannot see the shapes of furniture in a room

V3 Cannot recognise a friend if close to his/her face

V4 Cannot recognise a friend at an arm’s length away

V5 Cannot read a newspaper headline

V6 Cannot read a large print book

V7 Cannot recognise a friend across a room

V8 Has difficulty recognising a friend across the road

V9 Has difficulty reading ordinary newspaper print

V10 Full vision ability

Item Person Fit

A technique called Rasch Analysis was used to validate and analyse the questionnaire

Each person was generated a Transport Difficulty Score (Rasch Score) and each item was generated a Transport Difficulty Score (Rasch Measure)

These scores were calculated by accounting for participant ability in relation to task difficulty

The difference between these scores allow us to calculate the probability of a person being able to complete that task

Most Difficult Transport Related Tasks

Most Difficult Transport Related Tasks

Relationship between Transport Difficulty and Vision ability

Tran

sport

Diffi

culty

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

0 2 4 6 8 10V Level

Requires use of a Mobility AidNo Mobility AidKey

Relationship between Transport Difficulty and Vision ability

Regression Analysis Summary 52% of the variance in Life Space can be explained

by Transport Difficulty, visual ability, mobility and age

The need to use a mobility aid reduces a person’s overall Life Space Score by 8.26

Having a visual ability level of V7 or below decreases their overall Life Space Score by 2.69

Life Space Scores were found to decrease by 0.5 for every year of age

Overall Transport Difficulty levels were shown to help predict Life Space Patterns

Research Summary This study is one of the first to investigate the

relationship between low vision and mobility within a detailed public transport context

People who experience high levels of difficulty when using public transport have lower life Space scores

The effect of vision loss on transport difficulty is greater in those who require a mobility aid

This study has highlighted the most difficult tasks relating to public transport and low vision navigation that require further research and solutions

Future Research & Implications

The study has since been developed to include special transport modes used in Camden Council

This will be used to help evaluate a new transport intervention and specific transport modes used in Camden Council

These study methods and analytical techniques used could help practitioners and transport policy

Being one of the first evaluation techniques to account for the entire journey chain and individual ability levels

London Underground Platform Hump

Taku Fujiyama

UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

Gaps between the train and the platform

Hazards which could cause serious accidents

How to solve the problem

It would be difficult to remove horizontal gaps But possible to remove vertical gaps

Platform

Train

Humps (Lisbon Metro)

Project

London Underground decided to install platform humps across its networks

In order to decide design details, LU asked us to run experiments

At UCL PAMELA, we tested Slope and cross fall gradientsSurface colourStepping onto a sloped platform

Experiment

Experiment

Experiment

Experiment

Deviation on slope with crossfall gradients (Ascending)

1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0%0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Mobility Restriction

Shoes

VIP

Wheelchair

Wheels

Crossfall gradient

De

via

tio

n (

mm

/m)

Perception of safety when stepping onto a sloped platform

2.0% 3.0% 4.0% 5.0% 6.0% 7.0% 8.0%1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

Mobility restriction

Shoes

VIP

Wheels

Slope gradient

Ave

rag

e s

core

Experiment result

Slope gradient • Where possible, less than 6.9%

Crossfall gradient • No tangible effect

Visual contrast: • Contrast is necessary

Platform humps built

Platform humps built

Thank you for listening!

Taku Fujiyama & Natalie Chan

UCL Civil, Environmental and

Geomatic Engineering