Access to public transport to persons with visual disability: A scoping review

Eligibility criteria

Studies were considered for review if they reported either barriers, experiences, or enablers related to services for persons with visual disability who use public transport. Studies that described or reported the experiences of disabled persons (including PVD), who use public transport but did not specify the percentage or number of persons with visual disability who participated in that study were not included. Also, a study detailing experiences of persons with disability (PWD) on public transport was excluded if those experiences were not peculiar to persons with visual disability. Review articles were also excluded from the current review.

Data sources and search strategy

The search was implemented in three electronic databases: PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase. These scientific-based research databases were selected because they were comprehensive and covered a wide range of scientific disciplines.

Five key terms were identified based on the aim and title of this review, these were added to form an initial search phrase “access public transport visual impairment.” Synonyms to these keywords were identified as well to form eight additional phrases that were used to search the electronic databases. The final search phrases developed were nine and these included: “access public transport visual disability,” “access public transport blind,” “access vehicle visual impairment,” “access vehicle visual disability,” “provision public transport visual impairment,” “barrier public transport visual impairment,” “barrier public transport visual disability,” and “barrier public transport blind,” because it was considered by the researchers that these terms were directly related to the objectives of the review. All nine search phrases were used independently on the electronic databases. Then, Boolean operators were used to narrow and combine literature searches to produce a more comprehensive search result. The Boolean operator “OR” was used to combine all nine search phrases and the search was repeated in electronic databases to produce a combined result. No limits on dates, subjects, or types were placed on the database search.

Title or abstract screening

The title and abstracts of the articles obtained from these electronic databases were screened and the ones unrelated to the objectives of the review and did not meet the minimum criteria were excluded. The articles that were identified to be relevant to the review were extracted together into a new excel sheet file and the full text of the articles was obtained. Duplicates that resulted from the fact that multiple databases were used, were identified, and removed from the list of studies to be reviewed. Four reviewers from the research group, studied and reviewed the full text and selected the final list of studies included. This was done independently and each was added when three or more members listed it. The searches were supplemented by hand-searching the bibliographies of included studies from the databases. One of the reviewers screened the citation information to remove duplicates. The title and abstracts of these studies were screened and irrelevant manuscripts were removed. The process for the selection of the final studies was the same as that done for articles obtained from the electronic databases. A detailed illustration of how studies were included in the current review is shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1.

PrismaSR flowchart.

Data characterization

The articles that were deemed as being related to the objectives of the review were extracted into an excel sheet and the full articles were obtained and subsequently reviewed. The excel sheet contained the article title, authors, year of publication, participants, age range, and/or mean age when available and type of study design. Other data extracted from these selected papers were the challenges faced by persons with visual disability, facilitators/enablers, suggested solutions, and challenges from the perspectives of drivers/workers.

Data summary and synthesis

The data extracted were under four broad headings; access to public transport perspective of PVD, access to public transport perspective of drivers, facilitators/enablers, and suggested solutions. The challenges from the perspective of persons with visual disability were categorized under five main themes. These included the presentation of information, drivers/workers’ attitudes, bus design, technological barriers, and access to public spaces. The suggested solutions in the pieces of literature obtained were also categorized into six main themes, that is, training/education, policy-related, accessible information, standardization of design, technological advances, and benefits/support.

Presentation of information

Access to information was observed to be the most commonly reported barrier for persons with visual disability who use public transport (Table 2). The participants reported a lack of information concerning the number of approaching buses and difficulty identifying the correct bus to choose from when several or multiple buses arrived at one time (Golledge et al., 1997; Hersh, 2016; Park et al., 2017).

Several studies also documented the low access to information or lack of real-time information (Golledge et al., 1997; Low et al., 2020; Park & Chowdhury, 2018; Park et al., 2017) as a major barrier to the use of public transport. Also, visually impaired persons had concerns about not being informed or updated as the bus approached their designated stops (Casey et al., 2013; Golledge et al., 1997). This usually leads to them getting dropped off at the wrong stops (Casey et al., 2013), and also, information about vehicle failures and potential transfers at a given stop including waiting time before the next bus/tram was not communicated (Starzyńska et al., 2015). Problems with on-route activity, such as communicating with the driver about where to stop, signaling an approaching driver to stop, and getting to and from the nearest bus stop, were also documented (Golledge et al., 1997).

There have also been reported difficulty with reading bus numbers, the content of bus route, destination station, and other service information displayed on the front of the bus or overhead screens because there is poor presentation and visibility of information either due to poor/low contrast and small prints (Golledge et al., 1997; Montarzino et al., 2007; Park & Chowdhury, 2018; Park et al., 2017).

Several studies reported the lack of audio or voice announcements concerning travel information such as “current stop,” “next stop,” bus numbers, and bus destinations, as a barrier to the access to information by persons with visual disability during public transportation. In cases when this audio information is present, they are either delayed, unclear, of low audio volume, or within noisy environments that impede hearing of these announcements (Hersh, 2016; Low et al., 2020; Park & Chowdhury, 2018; Park et al., 2017; Starzyńska et al., 2015).

Drivers/workers’ attitude

Attitudes of drivers, public transport workers, and occasionally the general public were noted as the second most reported deterrent for accessing public transportation for persons with visual disability. Several studies documented that drivers and workers exhibited hostile, rude, poor, and inappropriate attitudes when relating to persons with visual disability (Bezyak et al., 2017; Gallagher et al., 2011; Low et al., 2020; Odame et al., 2020; Park et al., 2017; Pavey et al., 2009). Drivers and operators are usually unaware or lack the knowledge about the needs of visually impaired persons, (Bezyak et al., 2017; Park et al., 2017; Pavey et al., 2009) as drivers do not react to persons with a white cane, (Park et al., 2017; Starzyńska et al., 2015) with some unwilling to offer assistance (Low et al., 2020).

Most persons with visual disability who use public transport feel “forgotten” on buses or trains as drivers forget to announce bus stops or when a bus is approaching their designated stops (Bezyak et al., 2017; Casey et al., 2013; Golledge et al., 1997). Some drivers also, forget to stop the bus at the desired destination, thus dropping them at the wrong stops (Park et al., 2017) or not stopping despite persons with visual disability waiting at stops (Bezyak et al., 2017; Park et al., 2017).

Despite a recommendation by Ghana’s disability act, Abraham and colleagues (2021) reported that drivers were still unwilling to reserve (front) seats of their vehicles which are the most accessible for persons with visual disability as indicated in the disability act. Other issues had to do with drivers not pulling in far enough to the curb or not warning a person that they are stepping off the bus directly in front of an obstacle (Casey et al., 2013), difficulty locating their change as drivers hand it over anyhow (Hersh, 2016) and inappropriate driver language (Park et al., 2017).

Bus design

The internal and external bus design has been one of the reported difficulties persons with visual disability encountered when using public transport. Public transport vehicles come in different designs and sometimes lack the basic adjustment and accessories that enable access by persons with visual disability. Studies have reported that the lack of uniformity and consistency in the internal bus layout and design has been a concern to persons with visual disability who use public transport (Gallagher et al., 2011; Low et al., 2020). The absence or no usage of low floor facilities coupled with the steps on some bus seats being too close makes it difficult for visually impaired persons to negotiate steps on buses (Gallagher et al., 2011; Park & Chowdhury, 2018).

Reports have also been made about the lack of standardized priority space or designated areas and/or seats on public buses for people with visual disability (Odame et al., 2020; Starzyńska et al., 2015). Other issues related to bus design had to do with the doors and buttons; such as persons getting stuck in automatic doors, inaccessible door opening buttons or communicating buttons, faulty stop buttons, lack of bright color to indicate edge, and bus buzzers not in the same place/location on buses (Gallagher et al., 2011; Starzyńska et al., 2015).

Technological barriers

Odame and colleagues (2020) stated that the unavailability of assistive technology like communication tools that enable independent intercommunication between drivers and persons with visual disability was a major barrier to accessing public transport on an inclusive university campus. Another technological barrier reported by persons with visual disability who use public transport was the lack of information or auditory output on maps (Golledge et al., 1997; Park et al., 2017).

Accessibility of public spaces

Bus services and infrastructure that enables access to bus stations was noted to be poor. Barriers such as the lack or poor footpaths to bus stops have been reported (Park and Chowdhury, 2018; Park et al., 2017), with some roads/routes leading to taxi/vehicle stations not accessible (Bezyak et al., 2017) for people with visual disability due to potholes, mounds, unpaved routes, gulleys, and so on (Abraham et al., 2021). Obstructions on footpaths such as footpath closures, cones, recycling bins, cars, low-hanging branches, undulating footpaths, plants, and benches (Golledge et al., 1997; Park & Chowdhury, 2018; Park et al., 2017) and the diversity of the architecture or design of an environment makes these bus terminals and stations inaccessible.

There are also difficulties in boarding and alighting from buses and taxis because even though the low-floor buses have been introduced, buses do not seem to park in the right places, so there is a gap between the pavement and the bus (Golledge et al., 1997; Pavey et al., 2009). In Addition, one study documented that there were no designated/allocated areas for parking for persons with visual disability at bus stations (Abraham et al., 2021), while others reported difficulty with identifying and stopping the right bus to the desired destination (Casey et al., 2013; Golledge et al., 1997). Poor street lighting (Park & Chowdhury, 2018; Park et al., 2017) and lack of pedestrian crossings (Park et al., 2017) have also made it difficult for persons with visual disability to cross a street to find a transfer point (Golledge et al., 1997).

Significant amounts of frustration were experienced when signs were poorly located and illegible or when elevators were located in hard-to-find places (Golledge et al., 1997) or when there are no shelters at the bus stop (Park et al., 2017). Golledge and colleagues (1997) also recorded difficulties experienced by PVD with estimating where they were while traveling, dealing with a crowded vehicle, and difficulty finding pickup points for different modes of transportation, and difficulty learning the intervals between connecting services.

Training/education

The most documented solution to improving access to public transport for persons with visual disability was the provision of training programs for public transport drivers, workers, and to some extent the general public as shown in Table 3 (Abraham et al., 2021; Casey et al., 2013; Fast, 2018; Fast & Wild, 2019; Gallagher et al., 2011; Golledge et al., 1997; Hersh, 2016; Odame et al., 2020; Park & Chowdhury, 2018; Park et al., 2017). A training program of this nature is recommended to be should be obligatory, standardized (Gallagher et al., 2011) and administered through relevant state agencies with the possibility of influencing the selection of public transport drivers (Odame et al., 2020). The contents of the training must include guidelines based on feedback from travelers who are visually impaired regarding their own needs, and use such data to establish training sessions for public transport workers (Fast, 2018; Fast & Wild, 2019).

Policy-related

Most studies recommended that there should be strategic ways to ensure that existing national and local policies aimed at providing the necessary support for disabled persons with visual disability are regulated and enforced (Bezyak et al., 2017; Golledge et al., 1997; Odame et al., 2020; Park & Chowdhury, 2018). The creation of outreach programs where discussions for resolutions can be done in an open public forum and incorporating strategies such as contact, education, and social influence may target negative attitudes toward individuals with disabilities. Results could be used for policy development (Bezyak et al., 2017).

Accessing information

With improving access to information during travel by persons with visual disability, it has been reported that audio and current announcements on incoming and departing vehicles, trouble reports, and bad weather conditions should be done (Fürst, 2010). As reported in this study, this information should be of clear and articulate pronunciation and terms that are used only locally should be avoided. Designing and recording taped announcements, that could be played at the bus station and during travel would be a great way to make this information accessible to persons with visual disability (Fürst, 2010).

In another study, authors reported that there should be the introduction of Braille or large-print information on identification numbers on the buses, schedules, waiting times, en route locations, and bus locations (Golledge et al., 1997) This information could be visual or auditory and should be available at arrival times at bus stops/terminals or on the buses themselves. Another suggestion (Golledge et al., 1997) was for auditory information to include access to human operators on telephones and regular and clear announcements by drivers of the nearest cross streets at bus stops. Other studies documented that there should be real-time audio announcements and a good representation of information (Hersh, 2016; Park et al., 2017).

Technological advances in improving access to information; a new technology that could be developed and designed specifically to aid public travel by persons with visual disability was documented. A satellite navigation technology that could give automatic stop announcements (Gallagher et al., 2011) and the development of a reliable, efficient, and comprehensible audible announcement system (that could be linked to the global positioning system [GPS]) (Casey et al., 2013) would be helpful. Personal assistive devices and applications (e.g., cell phone applications) could be developed to provide feedback directly to the individuals (Bezyak et al., 2017).

The introduction of an early warning system to alert drivers that people with disabilities are waiting to embark at pickup points has also been suggested (Golledge et al., 1997). Street crossings at points where buses connect should have auditory pedestrian signals and crossing lights. Commuters will also benefit from the development of a device that could indicate clearly which bus is located at which pickup point when multiple buses converge (Golledge et al., 1997).

Standardization of vehicle design

The interior design of buses or vehicles should be in high contrasting colors with dazzle-free materials (matt surfaces, no polished metal elements) as it has been shown to significantly improve the orientation of the visually impaired and help them recognize potential dangers and react in time (Fürst, 2010). Yellow markings are relatively satisfactory (Fürst, 2010). When considering the design of the exterior of buses, locating the position of the entrance as well as the door openers on the outside should be easy. The entrance door should be distinguished from the rest of the vehicle and advertisement posters that cover the whole vehicle including doors should be avoided (Fürst, 2010).

For the design concerning the bus station environment, bollards, cordons, construction site grids, interior spaces such as lounges or corridors in stations, and other signboards and stand-up displays in public space should be marked in colors contrasting with the background. Some specific suggestions reported was; bollards marked in reflective colors, traffic signposts with markings at two-level, cordon with high contrast to the floor, barriers and signs should be designed in a way that sidetracking or shifting is not possible, colorful marking and contrasting of obstacles on the ground to improve perceptibility of the obstacles (Fürst, 2010).

There is a need for an international standard for the layout of public transport stations, toilets, and other facilities on public vehicles to reduce the barriers of PVD to international travel and tourism and increase their safety (Hersh, 2016; Park & Chowdhury, 2018). This must be complemented by consistency in vehicle design (Park & Chowdhury, 2018).

The difficulty of drivers identifying passengers with visual disability or PVD missing their buses at stations could be resolved by the introduction of color-coded plastic cards with the bus numbers. Potential passengers who are visually impaired could hold out these cards to attract the attention of the drivers (Hersh, 2016).

Providing benefits/support

Provision of benefits or supports and its implementation as a means of aiding public transport for PVD were reported in some studies (Gallagher et al., 2011; Golledge et al., 1997; Park et al., 2017). Mobility for PVD could be significantly enhanced if a system is instituted to allow taxi drivers to accept free travel passes (Gallagher et al., 2011). Therefore, there is a call for the revision of the benefits system (Park et al., 2017) to ensure it provides maximum benefit to commuters with visual disability. Recommendations such as the need to introduce volunteer guides that would take PVD persons through their first few uses of a transit system and such guides should be available when needed (Golledge et al., 1997). Second, housing-relocation services that would help people who are visually impaired find housing with easy access to bus stops (Golledge et al., 1997) could be established and incorporated in the benefits system.