Facilities, which you can hear, see, or touch - about inclusive urban transport

The urban transport in the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis is to an increasingly large degree accessible to persons with disabilities. This is the effect of systematic implementation of a number of changes, decided by the Metropolitan Transport Authority (ZTM), the organiser of urban transport on bus, tram, and trolleybus lines. Through appropriate provisions in new transport contracts the ZTM has introduced several standards, which will be required in all new buses.

The implementation of facilities is a process, due to which the urban transport becomes accessible and friendly to all passengers. Examples of such solutions include numerous displays of the Dynamic Passenger Information System, installed close to stops, together with a possibility of access to voice information, or technical requirements applicable to vehicles, e.g. on- and off-ramps, and vehicles’ kneel down, that is facilities serving passengers, who move on wheelchairs, parents with small children, and elderly persons. The new requirements are related to e.g. high-contrast displays, unification of wordings and stop names in all information channels, which is important for hearing-impaired persons or with a spectrum of autism, standardisation of voice announcements or lighting of stop edges in all new vehicles entering the service.

Also stickers with QR codes installed on timetable plates became an important element of ZTM activities. This new solution, implemented for some time by the ZTM, is to significantly facilitate the access to information for a large group of passengers. The stickers are placed at a hight of approx. 120 cm, which makes access to them available to persons on wheelchairs. They are always installed in the same place (the right bottom corner of the timetable plate). The entire QR code is convex, in addition the stop numbers are printed on them in Braille, which constitutes facilitation for visually-impaired persons. Ultimately, such stickers are to appear on all plates.

Also the ZTM Internet service has been audited under accessibility related actions. The inspection of the sub-site with timetables finished at the end of August.  The obtained accessibility certificate guarantees, that the ZTM website is fully without barriers, accessible to persons with disabilities, and complies with requirements of W3C WAI-AA.

Through the presentation of passenger-oriented solutions, implemented in the urban transport, the ZTM wants to encourage various groups of passengers to use the public transport.  The presentation of facilities as the answer to specific problems, encountered by persons with disabilities, is to make people aware that the implemented solutions are really used and necessary for many persons every day. On the other hand, the organiser of the urban transport counts on all passengers, that they will understand that such solutions facilitate moving to all users of the public transport.

Videos on facilities in the ZTM urban transport