Rail travel has many well-documented benefits. It gives more people access to education, employment and leisure opportunities as well as reducing the environmental impact of travel.
Access for All (AfA) is all about making the freedom of convenient, affordable and low carbon transport available to more people. AfA benefits everyone – people with health conditions or impairments, people with children, heavy luggage or shopping and some older people.
Keeping the broader goals in mind helps when it comes to delivering AfA schemes. It isn’t about installing ramps, lifts and other improvements – it’s about making life as easy as possible for somebody with reduced mobility. It’s the entire journey between the boundaries of the station estate and the point where they board or exit trains.
Access, mobility and inclusion weren’t considerations when most of the UK rail network was designed and built. As a society and as an industry, we’ve moved on. Hence the size and longevity of the AfA programme.
Changing Lives For The Better
We know AfA makes a tangible difference to how people travel. The European Transport Research Review published research that clearly shows a modal shift towards rail where there is step-free access to trains.
“The sample of railway station data extracted from 17 stations in Buckinghamshire confirms that there is a positive correlation between step-free access and the number of Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRMs) making journeys to or from the station. This proves that step-free access encourages people with a disability to travel by rail, and stations that integrate accessible routes with ramp provision are most likely to experience the highest number of PRMs travelling to or from the station.”
In other words: in the areas served by those stations, people who previously felt unable to use the rail network now can, and do. Imagine how that must feel.
Access To Travel Means Access To Work
AfA doesn’t just make life fairer, it brings clear economic benefits. Scope estimates that there are around 16 million people in the UK with reduced mobility. The employment rate of disabled people is 53%, compared to 82% of non-disabled people.
Disabled people are almost twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people, and three times as likely to be economically inactive. If easier access to transport helps more people to enter the workforce there’s a clear economic benefit. Train operating companies (TOCs) also benefit directly from more fare revenue.
It’s easy to get lost in the big numbers. But statistics are made up from countless human experiences. Each number represents people feeling the greater sense of connectedness and freedom that comes with accessible transport.
Social Cohesion
The benefits of AfA extend to the elderly and families with young children who might otherwise find rail travel a daunting prospect. Accessible rail networks help to promote social cohesion as well as economic opportunity.
So communities have to be integral to the design process and fully engaged partners in delivery. This collaborative spirit is how we’ll ensure that AfA delivers the biggest positive impact for as many people as possible.
For more information access our AfA resources or contact
Lloyd Jefferson-Smith, Head of Rail Pre-Delivery at AfA@octavius.co.uk
