1. Improving Public Transport for People with Low Vision Natalie Chan & Taku Fujiyama UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

2. Presentation Overview  Transport Institute in the Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering Department  Presentation will be in 2 parts: 1.Investigating public transport for people with low vision 2.London Underground – Platform humps

3. Investigating Public Transport use for people with low vision Natalie Chan UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

4. Introduction  Transport is vital for access to key activities, services and facilities  Inability to use public transport may result in increased social isolation  It is important that every aspect of a journey is accessible  Even if a small part of the journey is not manageable, the whole “journey chain” is broken

5. Journey Chain Origin Walking to bus stop Reading bus number Boarding Bus Manoeuvring on bus Alighting bus Destination Journey chain for a bus journey

6. Pedestrian & Transport Navigation Transport design Pedestrian environment Personal characteristics i.e. age and visual ability ? Navigating with low vision

7. Why is this research important?  There are almost two million people in the UK living with sight loss (Access Economics 2009)  The number is predicted to increase dramatically (Access Economics 2009)  Despite the prevalence of low visual conditions limited research has been completed about their relationship with mobility and overall navigation  This research project aims to address this gap with a focus on public transport

8. Questionnaire Development  Patient Led research

9. Life Space Patterns Conceptual levels in a Life-Space Model (Peel et al. 2005) Life Space measures the extent and frequency of travel

10. Vision Ability Level V LevelVision V1Cannot tell by the light where the windows are V2Cannot see the shapes of furniture in a room V3Cannot recognise a friend if close to his/her face V4Cannot recognise a friend at an arm’s length away V5Cannot read a newspaper headline V6Cannot read a large print book V7Cannot recognise a friend across a room V8Has difficulty recognising a friend across the road V9Has difficulty reading ordinary newspaper print V10Full vision ability

11. Item Person Fit  A technique called Rasch Analysis was used to validate and analyse the questionnaire  Each person was generated a Transport Difficulty Score (Rasch Score) and each item was generated a Transport Difficulty Score (Rasch Measure)  These scores were calculated by accounting for participant ability in relation to task difficulty  The difference between these scores allow us to calculate the probability of a person being able to complete that task

12. Most Difficult Transport Related Tasks

14. Requires use of a Mobility AidNo Mobility AidKey Relationship between Transport Difficulty and Vision ability

15. Regression Analysis Summary  52% of the variance in Life Space can be explained by Transport Difficulty, visual ability, mobility and age  The need to use a mobility aid reduces a person’s overall Life Space Score by 8.26  Having a visual ability level of V7 or below decreases their overall Life Space Score by 2.69  Life Space Scores were found to decrease by 0.5 for every year of age  Overall Transport Difficulty levels were shown to help predict Life Space Patterns

16. Research Summary  This study is one of the first to investigate the relationship between low vision and mobility within a detailed public transport context  People who experience high levels of difficulty when using public transport have lower life Space scores  The effect of vision loss on transport difficulty is greater in those who require a mobility aid  This study has highlighted the most difficult tasks relating to public transport and low vision navigation that require further research and solutions

17. Future Research & Implications  The study has since been developed to include special transport modes used in Camden Council  This will be used to help evaluate a new transport intervention and specific transport modes used in Camden Council  These study methods and analytical techniques used could help practitioners and transport policy  Being one of the first evaluation techniques to account for the entire journey chain and individual ability levels

18. London Underground Platform Hump Taku Fujiyama UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

19. Gaps between the train and the platform Hazards which could cause serious accidents

20. How to solve the problem  It would be difficult to remove horizontal gaps  But possible to remove vertical gaps Platform Train Humps (Lisbon Metro)

21. Project  London Underground decided to install platform humps across its networks  In order to decide design details, LU asked us to run experiments  At UCL PAMELA, we tested  Slope and cross fall gradients  Surface colour  Stepping onto a sloped platform

22. Experiment

26. Deviation on slope with crossfall gradients (Ascending)

27. Perception of safety when stepping onto a sloped platform

28. Experiment result Slope gradient Where possible, less than 6.9% Crossfall gradient No tangible effect Visual contrast: Contrast is necessary

29. Platform humps built

31. Thank you for listening! Taku Fujiyama & Natalie Chan UCL Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

32. Deviation on slope with crossfall gradients (Descending)