Using public transport 

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• Examples of discrimination
  
• Must a transport provider know that a person is disabled?
  
• Making reasonable adjustments to transport services
  
• What does reasonable mean?
  
• Rental and breakdown services
  

 

Examples of discrimination

Problem areas include poorly presented timetables, over-complex booking procedures, and airport waiting rooms, ferry terminals, and bus, coach and rail stations without adequate facilities or assistance for disabled people. Transport companies are obliged by law to make reasonable adjustments to eliminate these sorts of problems. By making changes to eliminate discrimination against disabled people, it is likely that non-disabled people will also benefit from the improvements.

Transport companies may also be breaking criminal law if the design of buses or taxis makes it difficult for people with mobility problems, including those with wheelchairs, to access the vehicle – there are regulations which cover these areas. These rules give protection on top of the general protection given by discrimination legislation.

The following section lists a number of examples where people may have a legal claim because of being treated less well than someone else.

Example: Service on less favourable terms

A deaf and blind woman has booked a minicab. When the minicab arrives, the driver asks the passenger to pay the fare in advance, something which he would not require from other passengers. The driver believes, without good reason, that because of her disability she is less likely to be able to pay. This is likely to be unlawful.

Example: Poor station access

Mrs Yun, a wheelchair user, needs to get onto the London-bound platform at her local railway station. To get from the ticket office to the platform means crossing a footbridge with steps at both ends. Because of this, Mrs Yun has to make a 400-metre detour along a public road, which has no pavement, to reach the entrance on the London-bound platform. This takes her 20 minutes. Mrs Yun has a good case that it is unreasonably difficult for her to reach the London-bound platform. The service provider has a duty to make reasonable adjustments. For example, a free taxi service could be provided to drive passengers with mobility issues to both sides of the station.

Example: Abuse from staff

A passenger with learning disabilities is travelling on a train. She happens to be the sole passenger in the carriage for the duration of the journey. During the routine ticket check, the passenger requests confirmation that she is on the right train. Owing to her disability, she takes some time to ask the question. The inspector becomes rude and abusive at the length of time taken, thereby providing the passenger with worse service than normal. The fact that there are no other passengers in the carriage does not mean that the disabled passenger has not been treated less favourably than other passengers. Other passengers would not have been treated in this way.

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Must a transport provider know that a person is disabled?

A transport provider may have treated a disabled person less favourably for a reason related to their disability, even if they did not know the person was disabled. The test which has generally been adopted by the courts is whether, as a matter of fact, this was the reason why the disabled person was less favourably treated.

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Making reasonable adjustments to transport services

If transport providers are found to be treating someone less favourably because of their disability, they are obliged by law to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to their services, vehicles or infrastructure to redress the problem. This duty is ‘anticipatory’: transport providers should expect that people with accessibility problems, such as disabled people, will be using their vehicles. They should consider what adjustments might be needed and put the necessary arrangements in place without waiting to be asked. Find out more about the legal duty to make reasonable adjustments.

The Disability Discrimination Act requires transport providers to take reasonable steps to:

• change a policy, practice or procedure which makes it impossible or very difficult for a disabled person to get on or off a vehicle, or to use any services on the vehicle (for example, a buffet car),
• provide extra help or information to a disabled person so that they can get on, travel on and get off a vehicle or use any services on the vehicle.

You may therefore have been unlawfully discriminated against if you find it impossible or unreasonably difficult to use the service due to a practice, policy or procedure which the provider has not taken reasonable steps to change.
 
Example: Failure to change practice

A train operator has a policy allowing only those passengers who have purchased appropriate tickets to sit in first class. However, on a particular service, the accessible toilet in standard class is out of order, leaving only an accessible toilet in first class available for passengers who use wheelchairs. A wheelchair user who is travelling in standard class is unable to access the toilet by moving through the train. Unless the train operator is prepared to waive its policy and allow the wheelchair user to sit in first class in order to have access to the accessible toilet, the effect of its policy is to make it unreasonably difficult for the disabled passenger to use the train. This is likely to be unlawful.

Another example would be a transport provider failing to take reasonable steps to make information available on audio tape or CD, or to provide a sign language interpreter.

Example: Changing practice for disabled access

As part of general customer service information on its train services, a train operator indicates that if a passenger cannot access the train buffet for a disability-related reason, they can have an at-seat service and should ask a member of the on-board staff for assistance. This trolley service helps to ensure that the train buffet services are accessible to disabled people.

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What does reasonable mean?

A transport provider is not required to take any steps which would fundamentally alter the nature of its service, operation, trade, profession or business or where a change may compromise someone’s health or safety.

Example: When health and safety come first

An electric wheelchair user cannot manoeuvre their wheelchair into the space in a taxi so as to allow them to be properly secured and to travel facing forwards or backwards. He wants to travel facing sideways instead. However, this position has been shown to be unsafe and so the taxi driver refuses to carry the wheelchair user.

This refusal is based on genuine concerns for the safety of the disabled person. In these circumstances, the taxi driver’s belief is likely to be reasonably held, and the refusal is therefore likely to be justified.

Example: An adjustment which is unreasonable

As a result of a stroke, Mr Dhaliwal has difficulty walking upstairs or for more than a short distance. Mr Dhaliwal is a regular visitor to his local cafe, which is in a converted terraced house. The cafe is on two floors. There is no lift to the upper floor, but there is seating on both floors and an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Mr Dhaliwal has asked the cafe owner to install a lift as a reasonable adjustment.
The cafe owner, who has no other business, looks into this. He gets estimates from two different builders who both say it will cost about £30,000 to install a lift, which will reduce by 20 per cent the space for seating on both floors.

The adjustment Mr Dhaliwal wants is not likely to be a reasonable one for the cafe owner to have to make. The cafe owner explains the reasons to Mr Dhaliwal and he also makes sure that disabled customers have priority for seating downstairs.

Example: An adjustment which is reasonable

Mrs Ward is a pensioner with a visual impairment. She visits her local museum. The exhibition rooms (the walls, doorways and ceilings) are painted completely white, which is disorientating and makes it difficult for Mrs Ward to find the entrances and exits to the other rooms. She uses the museum’s suggestion box to ask that doorways are painted with contrasting colours. This is likely to be a reasonable adjustment for the museum to make.

The museum acts quickly on the suggestion. They ask both Mrs Ward and the Royal National Institute of Blind People for their views to make sure the new contrasting colour scheme gives the best possible access.

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Rental and breakdown services

Providers of rental cars and breakdown services may be expected to make changes relating to physical barriers which prevent disabled people from using their vehicles.

Rental vehicles
Companies providing rental vehicles will have to take reasonable steps to remove, alter or avoid a physical feature which prevents a disabled person using a vehicle, or find a reasonable and different way of offering their service. However, there is no obligation to alter fixed seating.

Reasonable adjustment for rental vehicles
A disabled driver wishes to hire a rental car. In order to be able to drive, he requires hand controls to be fitted in the vehicle. The vehicle rental operator alters the braking and accelerator controls in one of its cars by installing a set of hand controls which the driver can use. This is likely to be a reasonable step for the vehicle rental operator to take.

Breakdown recovery vehicles
Breakdown recovery companies will have to take reasonable steps to overcome physical features which present barriers to disabled people by providing the service in a reasonable alternative way.
 
Example: Reasonable adjustment for a breakdown vehicle

A breakdown recovery operator sends a vehicle to assist a disabled motorist whose car has broken down on his journey home. On arrival, the breakdown recovery representative discovers that the broken-down car cannot be repaired immediately and must be towed away.

The terms of the motorist’s breakdown contract provide for him to be taken on to his destination in the event of a breakdown that cannot be resolved on site. The breakdown recovery operator would usually expect to comply with these terms by transporting customers in the cab of the recovery vehicle. However, the cab has steps leading up to it and the motorist has a mobility impairment and cannot climb up the steps into the cab.

The breakdown recovery operator therefore orders an accessible vehicle, perhaps a suitable taxi, to take the motorist home at no extra charge. This is provision of a service by an alternative method and is likely to be a reasonable step for the breakdown recovery operator to have to take. 

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