Doug Paulley's blog

disability, data protection, activism and other such

Rail Replacement and School Buses Must Be Wheelchair Accessible

Posted on by Doug Paulley

A Rail Replacement Bus and School Bus sign

Nearly all rail replacement and school buses/vehicles must be accessible – confirmed.

Rail replacement buses

I’ve previously given my legal interpretation of the applicability of accessibility regulations to rail replacement buses; now, I have independent verification.

In response to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR)’s consultation into Improving Assisted Travel, I reiterated my views and also sent them custom legal opinion supporting my position. After this consultation, the ORR published their Accessible Travel Policy Guidance. The “guidance” (despite its name!) is a comprehensive statement of the minimum that each train operating company (TOC) is required to do access-wise to meet its license obligations. The Department for Transport and the Disabled People’s Transport Advisory Committee both told the ORR that it should be mandatory that Rail Replacement vehicles are fully accessible. Despite this, in response to the consultation the ORR only obliged TOCs to:

make reasonable endeavours to secure accessible rail replacement services and taxis

That’s no different from existing statutory guidance that states

it is recommended that passenger train operators provide accessible buses, where reasonably
practicable

That appeal didn’t work. Most rail replacement vehicles for both planned and unplanned services are inaccessible. Even if some are, TOCs nearly always don’t know which of the vehicles in use are accessible. With a couple of notable exceptions, TOCs don’t bother to find out, at the time or afterwards, and have made little effort to be in a position to provide accessible replacement vehicles in the future.

TOCs’ failure to do so is a significant issue because it makes travel substantially more difficult for many disabled people. TOCs have traditionally got around this by saying they will provide accessible taxis, but that doesn’t do what is required because:

I therefore contacted (excellent) solicitor Louise Whitfield, and together we threatened to judicially review the ORR’s decision. The ORR made several commitments in response:

  • to rerun their consultation on the Rail Replacement Vehicles issue
  • to force TOCs to provide statistics on the accessibility of their Rail Replacement services
  • and to obtain legal advice on whether Accessibility Regulations apply to Rail Replacement Buses.

The ORR said: Rail replacement buses MUST be accessible

The Office of Rail and Road has published the resulting legal advice today. It is very detailed and authoritative. It validates my previous analysis and expands considerably, providing precedents.

It says

  • with minor exceptions, all rail replacement vehicles must be accessible
  • irrespective of whether the disruption is planned or unplanned
  • it is not legally relevant that the vehicles are paid for by the TOC and not by passengers
  • Both TOCs AND Bus providers are at risk of criminal prosecution if they run inaccessible vehicles
  • previous detractors claiming that only services registered with the Traffic Commissioners are subject to the regulations are incorrect.
  • The only exceptions to these rules are:
    • Rail Replacement services that are solely long distance (15+ miles between stops) and don’t run to a schedule – which covers hardly any vehicles
    • Vehicles over 20 years old that are used for “regulated” work for a maximum of 20 days a year
    • Coaches 15+ years old, though this exception will expire at the end of the year.

So: Train Operating Companies are committing criminal offences when they run inaccessible rail replacement vehicles (with some minimal exceptions.) (Being exceptionally childish, I am inwardly thinking: “I told you so”!)

It isn’t just the TOCs and bus companies that are liable: individual managers who commission or permit inaccessible vehicles are individually liable.

What now?

The industry is in an unusual situation given that this has been the law for 20+ years, apparently unrealised by TOCs, the ORR and others. The law is routinely broken; but the DVSA, which is funded and tasked to enforce the accessibility regulations, has never taken any enforcement action against any bus company as they, too, have been operating under the illusion that the current practice is legit. TOCs have not expended any substantial effort to improve the number of accessible RRBs. Tour / private hire coaches aren’t required to be accessible, and there’s no deadline that they will ever have to be. As a result, there quite simply aren’t enough accessible vehicles to provide rail replacement services.

However, TOCs are required by their license to provide rail replacement transport during disruption. What are they going to do? They have to provide rail replacement vehicles for every disruption, but there aren’t enough such accessible vehicles, and they risk prosecution for running inaccessible ones. A difficult situation they find themselves in, but I have little sympathy. If TOCs had made any significant effort to improve the accessibility of vehicles over the last 20 years, they wouldn’t be in this situation. Similarly, if they had complied with the law, which has been around for 20 years and had a staggered introduction to ease the transition.

The ORR have sent all the TOCs the legal advice today. They have solicited comments ahead of re-running the consultation and also re-described the existing requirements on rail replacement services as “provisional”. I bet TOC transport contract managers are having somewhat of a sleepless night…

School Buses

I believe that disabled pupils should be able to travel on the same buses as everybody else. To do otherwise is segregation. It is damaging to disabled pupils, their peers and society. So school buses should be accessible.

Inaccessible school buses also have a direct impact on wheelchair users, including me. I have found it difficult to book wheelchair accessible taxis around school times because they are all in use for schools contracts to transport disabled kids. I have also found it difficult of an evening because accessible taxi drivers in (say) Harrogate only work during the day. I have also had occasions where brand new buses, bought for school transport, have been used for rail replacement buses on a weekend – and yet are inaccessible to me.

Hansard makes it pretty clear that if there is any one person on a school bus for whom money has been paid for their right to travel, then the school bus must comply with the accessibility regulations. The rail replacement bus I attempted to catch in January was in use in the week as a school bus. North Yorkshire county council contracted said bus services, and sold spare capacity to pupils who aren’t entitled to free school transport. So this brand new bus should have been accessible – but wasn’t.

I complained to North Yorkshire County Council about this on 8th February this year. They took forever to respond, then basically said that they were seeking specialist advice so couldn’t respond. I appealed. They still didn’t provide a definitive response. So come July, I started legal proceedings.

Instant pandemonium ensued. I have been variously accused of:

(As evidenced in the Executive Committee Minutes.)

Rather than work towards running accessible vehicles and thus complying with both the letter and the spirit of the law, the Council have decided to get around the accessibility regulations by stopping charging pupils for spare seats. I think this is reprehensible.

North Yorkshire Council are the architects of their problem. As they openly state in their report on the subject:

Past practice is that the Council does not set out to procure accessible vehicles for mainstream home to school transport. There is no specific obligation to do so, and
transport needs for entitled pupils requiring accessible vehicles are met through
bespoke arrangements. When services are put out to tender, operators are then free
to offer accessible or non-accessible vehicles with contracts awarded on the basis of
the lowest cost to the Council (subject to meeting minimum quality standards).

The Council have therefore been quite content to run inaccessible buses, thus segregating disabled kids, and have made no effort whatsoever to provide unsegregated accessible school transport. They are subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which obliges them to have due regard in all their public functions for the need to:

  • eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act;
  • advance equality of opportunity between disabled people and non-disabled people; and
  • foster good relations between disabled people and non-disabled people, including the need to
    • tackle prejudice, and
    • promote understanding.

I don’t see how unquestioningly segregating disabled kids in special buses, away from their peers, could be considered to comply with this duty.

The Council decided to stop charging anybody for home-to-school transport for this year, taking the financial hit, while lobbying Government for “clarification” or “change” of the law. They will then review the situation at the end of the year, with:

options including permanently waiving charges or ceasing to providing transport for non-entitled mainstream pupils unless and until operators are able to provide accessible vehicles at an affordable cost to the Council.

Or they could do what they should have been doing all along: obliging their public transport providers to provide accessible vehicles in accordance with their legal obligations. I.e. North Yorkshire County Council could enforce the existing term in their school transport providers’ contracts:

The Supplier shall ensure that Vehicles shall comply with all relevant requirements of law relating to construction (including the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2000), equipment and use and shall ensure that the Vehicles are properly taxed, tested, licensed and insured, and where a Vehicle does not meet any element of these requirements then this would be considered a material breach of Agreement under clause 12.2.

(my emphasis)

I make no apology for taking action to ensure the Council and its officials complies with its criminal law obligation to ensure school buses are accessible to disabled pupils. I suggest other councils take note.

The Right to Ride

All disabled people are asking for, as the saying goes, is To Boldly Go Where All Others Have Gone Before.

The legislation is there for a reason. We have the Right to Ride on school and rail replacement buses, just as much as anybody else.

Joe Hendry and Euston assistance staff “Paul”: I’m “Abusive” … or they lied?

Posted on by Doug Paulley

In July I attempted to catch the Caledonian Sleeper to Aberdeen. I failed because they hadn’t stowed the upper bunk in the accessible cabin, despite multiple attempts to do so.

In the middle of a discussion with the guard as to what to do (as a disabled person suddenly without accommodation hundreds of miles from home) I was interrupted by Euston Assistance staff member “Paul”. He repeatedly barracked me, in front of another passenger, for failing to meet him at the station mobility assistance meeting point. (I had specified to meet me at the lounge, which I visited for the shower.)

I later complained about his attitude. Network Rail stated that all assistance users must meet at the assistance reception. I found that not credible given that Network Rail offer assistance entering the station – how can somebody get that assistance if they have to register at the assistance point in the station?

Network Rail then accused me of being abusive to the staff member.

I was astonished at this ad-hominem and unjustified attack. I have never been abusive to assistance staff, and I found the allegation abhorrent.

In the course of ensuing conversations, Network Rail accidentally released internal correspondence showing that it was Euston station manager Joe Hendry who had made the allegation:

their recollection was that they were approached by Mr Paulley who was very abusive to the member of staff. … He was told that we weren’t informed and then told our member od staff to go away …
We successful assist approximately 100k customers a year without incident and will not accept abusive behaviour from passengers and after this incident we have reviewed our processes and feel that we need to introduce the option of our staff to have access to body worn cameras to avoid situations like this or indeed just to get a record of what happened form their side.

(Typos in the original)

Joe Hendry, Station Manager, made the above allegations based solely on the account of the staff member involved, against my account and without seeking any third party evidence from e.g. the train manager whose conversation he interrupted.

I threatened libel action. Happily, I had the whole interaction recorded.

Transcript:

> Sleeper Manager: The managers up in Inverness. They say there’s two things they can do. They can can get you booked on the service another day and get you a taxi home.
> Mr Paulley: Taxi home to Wetherby, North Yorkshire?
> Sleeper Manager: Is that’s home for you?
> Mr Paulley: Yeah I came down from Wetherby specifically to do this tonight.
> Sleeper Manager: Oh OK.
> Paul: Mr Paulley?
> Mr Paulley: Yes?
> Paul: I’ve been waiting for.. (unclear)
> Mr Paulley: Yeah, I was up in the First Class Lounge. I was in the First Class Lounge.
> Paul: Yeah that’s OK, but I didn’t know where you are. (unclear)
> Mr Paulley: Yeah, I did tell them that I had booked assistance.
> Paul: (unclear)
> Mr Paulley: I told them that I was, when I phoned up to book assistance, I said “meet me at the first class lounge”.
> Paul: (unclear)
> Mr Paulley: Well that’s not my fault, is it?
> Paul: (unclear)
> Mr Paulley: Yeah. I was where I said I would be when I booked assistance, which was the first class lounge. Now please leave me alone.
> Sleeper Manager: Or we can get you booked…

I don’t see how that can be characterised as “abusive”. Neither could Network Rail’s route manager, who eventually responded:

If this video is an accurate gauge of the tone of all the interactions you had with our staff at Euston on that day,then I do not think it shows evidence of “unprofessional behaviour” by our staff member. I equally do not think it shows evidence of you being “abusive.”
As a result having reviewed the available evidence, I would like to retract and apologise for, the use of the word “abusive” from the earlier response to you by Simon Evans. This descriptor is not supported by the evidence I have seen.

So much for staff needing body-worn cameras to protect them against malicious allegations made by members of the public. I shall continue to record such interactions to protect MYSELF from malicious allegations, particularly when senior station staff such as Mr Hendry swallow and relay staff accusations against contrary accounts and without seeking third party evidence.

Meanwhile the ICO responded on the use of body worn cameras, saying there would need to be a “clear and pressing social need” for such to be justified; and Network Rail’s Data Protection Officer stated there’s no current proposal to introduce such. And rail regulator Office of Rail and Road has considered my

point about Network Rail requesting that passengers report to the assistance reception desk at Euston station when they have booked, or require to book assistance, even though their current DPPP states their assistance is available to help passengers entering any of their managed stations. … As part of the policy approval process we will ensure this details exactly what assistance is available at Euston station and how to get it, thus eliminating the inconsistency in the information you have identified.

I caught the Sleeper again on Monday. I booked assistance to meet me at the shower lounge, which didn’t happen. I therefore went to the registration point, where staff were not expecting me, despite my booking. Staff asked me to wait 20 minutes, which I did whilst 5+ staff hung around and chatted amongst themselves, to the exclusion of passengers waiting for assistance. They eventually asked me to make my own way to the platform, where station staff would assist me onto the train. Station staff didn’t turn up, so the train staff helped me on.

I think the learning points of this are:

  1. Maybe don’t bother booking assistance for the Sleeper at Euston, they are so dilatory it may be easier simply to ignore them and rely on train staff. Booking simply resulted in extra stress, being shouted at and libeled in my case, to no benefit.
  2. Take a camera, record and keep all the things, because some staff evidently make up allegations against passengers and managers unquestioningly accept station staff’s allegations without seeking corroboration.

All extra stress only experienced by disabled people with assistance needs…

Charging your phone (battery bank, USB fan etc.) from your electric wheelchair or scooter

Posted on by Doug Paulley

There’s something perverse about running out of mobile battery whilst sitting in a wheelchair or scooter with huge batteries. Various commercial products bridge that gap; the best of which is Cripple Concepts’ charger. These plug into the charging port on an electric wheelchair and provide a turbo USB charging socket.

These products suffer from some limitations however. Many of them (notably NOT Cripple Concepts’) give out too little power to charge a modern mobile phone. Many of them are expensive (CC’s $40 isn’t bad.)

It’s comparitively easy to create your own charger that is more powerful and versatile, and cheaper. You don’t need to know any electronics to do it either – if you can solder a wire onto a pin you can make this.

wheelchairdriver.com shows how to create such a USB adapter. I found his instructions invaluable (and wouldn’t have been able to make mine without them), but I have concerns about his creation. The first is heat dissipation: if doing similar with a high power charger, sufficient heat may be generated within the USB adapter to cause it to fail. I also think the connection to the adapter may not be robust enough to survive use and abuse. I would prefer a more powerful rapid charger. Also I would prefer a more “universal” product with e.g. 2+ USB sockets (and that also applies to the Cripple Concepts’ one.)

There’s an alternative, clunkier solution:

It’s clunky but cheap, powerful and useful.

The charger doesn’t stop the wheelchair being driven, like plugging the wheelchair in does. It has a negligible effect on the wheelchair batteries. My wheelchair has two 72 amp hour batteries and my mobile battery is 3.3 amp hours. So it can be used pretty much as much as you like without concern.

Parts needed:

1) “Neutrik” / XLR microphone plug.

Any will do. They are about £3 on eBay.

2) Cigarette lighter inline socket.

The cheapest way to get one of these is to buy a cigarette lighter extension and cut off / discard the plug end. However, I have discovered that those sockets aren’t very robust so break quickly. I advise against getting this very common socket:

Try to get one of these less common but more robust sockets:

They are about £4-5 if you shop around.

3) A cigarette lighter USB adapter of your choice. But NB: the adapter must work with 24 volts, not just 12 volts.

I use one that has two Qualcomm Quick Charge 3 USB sockets. This is about £2 delivered on eBay.

Solder the wires from the cigarette lighter socket to pins 1 and 2 of the Neutrik plug, as described on wheelchairdriver.com.

Strengthen the wire if you want, using heat shrink, hot glue or whatever. I also cable tie it to the wheelchair cable that runs to the control / joystick module, for extra strength and convenience. That way it’s always at hand.

Put the USB adapter in the cigarette lighter socket. That’s it, really, all done.

The only thing I also did however, is to find a way to keep the USB adapter into the socket. Reason being that otherwise it tends to work loose over time, which is frustrating – I’d discover my phone hadn’t been charging when I thought it was. Pushing the charger back into the socket does the trick until next time it works loose.

Over time I’ve discovered the best way is to use a metal bodied USB adapter something like this:

Metal USB cigarette lighter adapter

 

With a pair of pliers, I simply squeeze the body of this to deform it enough that it bulges and jams into the cigarette lighter socket. This is remarkably robust.

Previously, I drilled a hole through the cigarette lighter socket and the USB adapter (carefully, to avoid damaging its internal circuit board) and put a cable tie through. Otherwise you could glue the adapter into the socket etc. But this is a pfaf.

To use it: plug the Neutrik plug into the charging socket on the wheelchair. The USB sockets are now live and can be used for anything USB. In my case this is charging my phone, my Go Pro camera and/or my battery banks, and running a USB fan (I recommend the “Key Nice” fan below from Amazon) and/or Christmas fairy lights.

To charge the chair, simply unplug the USB charger and plug in the wheelchair charger.

Update 2023

I now recommend using better quality wire and an inline fuse in the charger.

This is because I had An Incident one day. I flipped back the wheelchair arm, as it is designed to do, but the cable from the device somehow got pinched in the arm mechanism. This pinch resulted in a short circuit. The wire suddenly got very hot and the plastic started to smoke.

I unplugged the adapter quick, and my wheelchair and I survived, though the phone charger was toast. And I learnt my lesson. The wheelchair charger socket is effectively directly connected across the two huge batteries, and should a short occur, it is… dramatic.

My chargers now have fuses, and higher quality cables. I use an in-line car fuse holder and 15 amp fuse:

My USB charger plugged into my wheelchair charger port. There's a small black plastic box in the red charging cable.

The wheelchair wiring itself is rated for 12 amps, so any short should hopefully blow the fuse at 15 amps and protect the wiring before that burns out.

The fuse holder is something like this. Trade Direct 2 x Standard Blade Fuse Holder and the fuse is something like this Simply BF819 Alloy Blade Fuse Assortment.

I then use the cigarette lighter socket’s black wire for the other terminal, and solder all together as above.

That way everything is protected for if I trap the wire again – though hopefully I shouldn’t because I’ve tidied the wires up a lot!

Finally, I’ve discovered that right angle Neutrik plugs are more convenient than straight ones.