Assessing the accessibility of the Wolverhampton interchange, UK

Document summary

The UK Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) of 2005 requires transport service providers and local authorities to make reasonable infrastructure adjustments to accommodate the needs of disabled transport users. This paper presents the findings of a study that aimed to evaluate the extent to which the recently developed Wolverhampton Transport Interchange project meets the requirements set out in the Disability Discrimination Act. The study involved the implementation of a questionnaire survey of disabled users and semistructured interviews with stakeholders of the project. Site audits on three transport interchanges were undertaken for assessing the services offered and for enabling a comparative study. The paper presents the perceptions of users with various disability types regarding the infrastructure offered and concludes that the legislation had made an impact on improving the accessibility for disabled users, but what is needed is a process of rationalisation. Data from the transport interchange providers showed evidence of reasonable adjustments to meet the needs of the disabled, but obstacles to full compliance remained and further improvements could be made in order to enhance the services offered to the disabled users.