Trains, planes and wheelchairs: why is this still a route to disaster?

Whenever I take a train journey, I am filled with dread. Despite always booking assistance, I am terrified there won’t be someone at my destination with a ramp to help me and my powered wheelchair on to the platform. Many a time has my travel companion – or a complete stranger – had to straddle the train and the platform to stop the train doors closing with me stuck inside. I have frequently arrived at my destination late and stressed, left with the impression that my time doesn’t matter. What on earth could I be late for – surely nothing important?

So I have read with horror, but not surprise, the recent stories of disabled people being abandoned or mistreated when travelling on planes and trains. I know from bitter experience that chaotic journeys and ruined plans are a regular occurrence when trying to navigate the public transport system.

In July, BBC journalist Frank Gardner complained about being stranded on an empty plane without wheelchair assistance after landing – the fifth time this had happened since he began using a wheelchair in 2004. In June, Gatwick apologised to Victoria Brignell, who was stuck on a plane for more than 90 minutes after landing when airport staff failed to come to assist her.

Stories like this – and many more – mean I’ve never dared take my powered wheelchair on a plane. I’m worried that when I arrive it will be broken or missing, ruining my holiday. For this reason I have ruled out plane travel for the foreseeable future.

And trains aren’t much better. I was considering using the train for my daily commute, so I did a trial run. I booked a wheelchair space, but despite me pointing out the carriage with a wheelchair sign on the door, the member of staff helping me insisted I got into a different one. I got on board and found myself in the bicycle store. The corridor was too narrow for me to move from there and so I had to insist that he help me get off at the next stop and get back on in the correct place. I was met with huffing and puffing. I ended up discounting the train altogether. I just couldn’t face the prospect of dealing with such obstructive and rude behaviour each day.

These issues aren’t unique to overground trains, either. Anna Landre, a disability justice activist and scholar, was recently stranded on the London Underground. Staff should have been at her destination with a ramp, but nobody appeared – and Landre was unable to summon help as the emergency levers on the Tube train weren’t at wheelchair height. Her only option was to tweet at Transport for London. She later received an apology and was told that ‘appropriate action has been taken’ – although sadly with no mention of how this might be prevented from happening again.

If you have a disability, you can never take a trip on the spur of the moment, and you have to plan everything to the nth degree. ‘The fatigue is real,’ says Erik Matthies of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). ‘You have to psych yourself up for it every time.’

Many individuals who are blind or partially sighted rely on public transport to get around. Yet Matthies described to me a catalogue of problems, including a lack of basic safety features such as tactile paving at railway stations (found to be a contributory factor in the death of a visually impaired man in London last year), the diminishing number of railway staff, poor passenger assistance and a lack of audio announcements.

And those whose disabilities aren’t always obvious from the outside face difficulties of their own. Matthies says many travellers don’t recognise that priority seats should be available to those with any disability – not just those who have a mobility issue. Campaigners have highlighted cases of travellers with conditions such as Parkinson’s being forced to stand for long periods or having to cancel trips because they can’t reserve seats on some services, while those who require wheelchair access can book one of a handful of accessible seats.

RNIB members also regularly report difficulties just trying to reach a bus stop or train station in the first place. These include obstacles on pavements, insufficient pedestrian crossings and even an encroachment on previously safe ground by the cycle infrastructure that often requires pedestrians to cross cycle lanes before reaching, for example, a bus stop.

So what can be done to make public transport better for everyone? Tactile paving at railway stations is a must, as well as audio-visual announcements across all buses. Consistency is key. Patchy accessibility has gone on for too long, leaving disabled travellers at sea when they have to deviate from a familiar route. Training for staff is crucial to ensure better passenger assistance and more positive experiences across the board.

My dream would be for every train to have step-free access. Until then, assistance intercoms on trains to allow passengers to contact staff would be a good start. If emergency levers on all trains (whether underground or overground) were at wheelchair height, this would provide a simple back-up solution for those occasions when no assistance arrives.

In terms of planes, the day when passengers can remain in their own wheelchairs during every flight feels a long way off. However, proper (and timely) assistance and no lost or damaged mobility equipment would go a long way to restoring faith in air travel.

Martyn Sibley, CEO and co-founder of inclusive marketing agency Purple Goat, believes that disabled people need to be consulted by transport providers. He told me that ‘inclusive design is proved to enhance everybody's experience, and by including all people there's far-reaching economic benefits too’.

Aside from these excellent reasons, it is also the right thing to do. It is 2022 and it’s time that the travel industry acted like it.