Public Transport: North East

(asked on 29th June 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that public transport (a) infrastructure and (b) vehicles in the North East are accessible to people with disabilities.


Answered by
Nusrat Ghani Portrait
Nusrat Ghani
Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
This question was answered on 9th July 2018

The Government wants to ensure that transport in all parts of the country is fully accessible to disabled people. The Department for Transport will publish an Inclusive Transport Strategy setting out how we will achieve this later this year.

The Strategy will set out our key policy and investment priorities for improving disabled people’s access to all modes of transport. It will also confirm our timeframes and proposals for monitoring delivery. The Strategy follows a consultation in 2017 on a draft Accessibility Action Plan, which received over 1,000 responses.

The Strategy will build on significant accessibility improvements made nationwide in recent years, including:

  • 98% of buses in England in 2016/17 were compliant with the Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations, up from 28% in 2004/05;

  • 78% of the mainline rail fleet is compliant with modern accessibility standards, up from 42% in 2008. Furthermore, new fleets of trains are being introduced as part of the franchises for the North (Northern and Trans Pennine Express) which will meet modern accessibility standards and existing fleets are undergoing refurbishment ahead of the mandatory 2020 vehicle accessibility compliance end date;

  • Since 2006, more than 200 stations have had accessible step free routes installed under Access for All. This is in addition to access improvements delivered by the industry or as part of other major projects. 75% of rail journeys are now through step-free stations, up from only 50% in 2005.

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