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Delivering Inclusive Public Transport: Creating a disability-inclusive approach
February 8, 2022 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CET
About the Event
More than one billion people with disabilities are on the planet, accounting for about 15 percent of the world’s population. Most of them live in low- and middle-income countries and too often, they experience challenging poverty, marginalisation, and exclusion in society.
Accessible public transport is essential for ensuring people with disabilities have access to education, employment and healthcare, as well as social contacts with family and friends. The ability to move and travel independently is fundamental to breaking the downward spiral of dependence and poverty.
Organised as a joint collaboration by the International Road Federation and the High Volume Transport Applied Research Programme, this webinar focused on the challenges the transport sector faces in ensuring that people with disabilities are not only beneficiaries of development, but importantly that they are agents of change driving that development.
To do so, we explored the mobility experiences of people with disabilities living in low- and middle-income countries and presented some of the latest work being done to create a disability-inclusive approach to building inclusive public transport.
For a full summary of the webinar, click here.
Note: Presentations of the speakers can be accessed below.
Did you miss it? Watch the recording now
Moderator
Ann Frye OBE, BA, FCILT, FCIHT, TPP
Director, Ann Frye Ltd
See bio
Ann is an international specialist on the mobility needs of disabled and older people.
She works as an expert advisor to Governments and transport providers both internationally and in the UK on mobility options for people with physical, sensory, cognitive, and mental health issues.
Her work includes a focus on low-income countries. Ann was the author of the High-Volume Transport 2019 Policy Brief “Disability Inclusive Public Transport: Practical steps to making public transport disability inclusive”.
Ann has worked in this field for over 30 years; until 2006 she headed the UK Department for Transport’s Mobility & Inclusion Unit where she led research, legislation, and policy to establish rights and develop technical standards for accessibility.
Speakers
Bright Oywaya
Executive Director, Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT-Kenya)
See bio
Bright Oywaya is the Executive Director of the Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT-Kenya), a not-for profit organization that promotes road safety through education, awareness creation and advocacy. She is a counseling psychologist and ex-banker. Bright has been passionately advocating for issues related to road transport and safety and disability since 1997 when she was involved in a road crash, causing disability that has resulted to the use of a wheelchair.
She has worked in various positions in different organizations, including the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) in Kenya where she served as the Vice Chairperson for six years. She is currently serving as a board member at the International Road Victims Partnership, and as the Vice Board chairperson for the Association for the Physically Disabled of Kenya.
Her advocacy work is both at national and global levels.
Maria Kett
Associate Professor in Humanitarianism and Disability, UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare
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Dr Maria Kett is Associate Professor in Humanitarianism and Disability in the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Healthcare. An anthropologist by training, she has extensive expertise in disability- inclusive humanitarian responses, global health, human rights, climate change, poverty alleviation, and the consequences of social exclusion. Maria has undertaken research in countries across Africa and Asia, leading on a number of research programmes on disability and international development and is author of over 90 publications. She regularly serves as a consultant for numerous bilateral and multilateral donors, including the UK FCDO, the World Bank, and the United Nations.
Subhash Chandra Vashishth
Accessibility, Universal Design & Diversity Inclusion Specialist
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Subhash Chandra Vashishth is an Accessibility, Universal Design & Diversity Inclusion Specialist, working on policy and standards formulation, capacity building, access consultancies & advocacy on disability inclusion in built environment, transport systems and ICT. As an Expert Member on Bureau of Indian Standards Committees for National Building Code, Smart Cities, Active Assisted Living etc., he has contributed to standards formulation incorporating universal accessibility. He litigates disability rights cases before judicial forums, lectures in architecture & engineering institutions on Universal Design and Accessibility & is empaneled as Trainer for Access Audits as a part of Accessible India Campaign. He is Founder Director of Centre for Accessibility in Built Environment Foundation based in India and is G3ict’s Country Representative for India. He is also a Member of TRB’s Standing Committee on Accessible Transportation and Mobility (AME 50).
Thomas Fleming
Associate, ITP’s Transport Policy & Strategy
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Thomas Fleming is an Associate within ITP’s Transport Policy & Strategy team. He has supported the development of numerous studies focussing on the topic of disability and inclusion in transport. This includes the development of latest guidance on Blue Badge parking for the Department for Transport (DfT), a study to define an accessibility standard for taxi ranks for Transport for London (TfL), and two separate research studies for the Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB) into the unplanned movement of wheelchairs and pushchairs on station platforms, and accessibility issues faced by mobility scooter users respectively. He is currently Project Manager for the update of Overseas Road Note 21 – Enhancing the Mobility of Disabled People: Guidelines for Practitioners. The document provides practical guidance to policy-makers and engineers to ensure the design of transport systems takes account of the needs of disabled people in low and middle-income countries. The revised guidance document is due to be published by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in the coming months.