PTaccess - Newsletter 1

PTaccess is a 2 year project funded by the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme

PTaccess stands for Public Transport Systems Accessibility for People with Disabilities in Europe. The project is assessing the accessibility of public transport systems in Europe, is identifying good solutions for making public transport accessible. The project is aiming to improve access and in correlation with that improve social inclusion, access to employment and other services for disabled people.

This first newsletter gives an overview of the PTaccess project and provides information about the already available results.

What is PTaccess?

There is still lack of EU level data on access to public transport for people with disabilities and the resulting impact on their employment and social integration prospects.

PTaccess now offers the chance to fill this gap in knowledge and obtain information on the current accessibility levels of urban and rural public transport systems within 25 EU-Member States.

For each of these countries PTaccess analyses the state of accessibility of public transport from the point of view of national disabled organisations, national transport operators, and governmental authorities. For regions where public transport is not accessible PTaccess identifies and analyses applied alternative transport solutions.

PTaccess will also identify and analyse good practices and innovation in making public transport accessible, and collates scientific evidence to make the case for policy improvements.

The data will also help to improve understanding of social exclusion of disabled people which will help draw conclusions about the correlation between public transport, employment and social inclusion for disabled people.

PTaccess is directly contacting national experts within 25 Member States, as well as drawing on results of other projects and initiatives. Organising the work in this way PTaccess will obtain excellent results.

Results already available

• Information and Data on accessible Public Transport
  In the first months of the project, the results and findings of other relevant projects, studies and initiatives have been analysed and a comprehensive desktop review of information and data concerning the accessibility of public transport systems in all 27 EU Member States has been produced. The results of these two studies are included in the report State of the Art regarding Information and Data on accessible Public Transport, which is available for download from www.ptaccess.eu
• Good Practice Examples of Accessible Public Transport
  Stakeholder interviews with national experts and a comprehensive desktop search formed the basis for a collection of European good practice examples for accessible public transport. The good practice examples cover the areas of engineering / technology approach, financial support measure, organisational / operational support and awareness rising. The result of this collection is a comprehensive report of 75 good practice examples, in which each example is briefly described and classified. This report is available for download from www.ptaccess.eu

Outlook

Based on the results of stakeholder interviews that have been conducted in 25 EU Member States, the PTaccess team is currently compiling a comprehensive report on the accessibility of public transport in Europe. This report will be available on the website www.ptaccess.eu soon.

Within the next months the PTaccess team will assess the costs and benefits of making public transport more accessible and develop an understanding of the correlation between public transport, employment and social inclusion for disabled people.

Legal Disclaimer

The sole responsibility for the content of this newsletter lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Communities. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.