TRAN

Mind the Gap: The EU’s public transport sector is pivotal in the daily lives of its citizens. Considering that over 80 million Europeans have a disability that may comprise their ability to partake in shared mobility services, how should the EU innovate and adapt its public transportation systems to be more inclusive and accessible, catering…

Committee on Transport and Tourism

By Akın Çetinbağ (TR)

Introduction

“By focusing on the experience and needs of disabled people, we address a wide variety of barriers such as age, health, or language in current urban transport systems.”                            

Professor Kristina Andersen (Eindhoven University of Technology)

80 million individuals in the European Union, which is one-sixth of the population, experience disabilities ranging from mild to severe. Due to their compromised abilities,  disabled persons often face barriers that prevent them from fully participating in society and the economy. Furthermore, their poverty rate is 70% higher than the EU average, which is exacerbated by European citizens paying the most in public transit fees compared globally. Shared mobility devices such as public transit allow persons with disabilities to have access to employment opportunities, leisure activities or participating in society in general. Public transport ensures freedom of movement and enables individuals to cross distances, borders, and natural barriers, rendering it central to the everyday lives of European citizens. Without access to public transit, it is harder for persons with disabilities to get out of poverty, as well as to participate in society more generally. As there is a significant variety of physical disabilities, there is a multitude of information that has to be communicated in unorthodox ways to accommodate everyone. Furthermore, it is difficult to measure equity because it is subjective and cannot be easily translated into numbers. As a result, auditing the success of implemented policies is non-trivial. 

Key Terms & Concepts

  • Shared mobility: Shared mobility devices are transportation services and resources that are shared among users, either concurrently or one after another, such as public transit, bike sharing, and scooter sharing.
  • Activity limitation: Activity limitation is a dimension of health/disability capturing long-standing limitations in performing usual activities (due to health problems). Indicators based on this concept can be used to evaluate the general health status, disability and related inequalities, and healthcare needs at the population level.
  • Accessibility: Accessibility means a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use.
  • Horizontal equity: Horizontal equity, also called fairness and equality, is concerned with the distribution of impacts between people with similar needs and abilities.
  • Vertical equity: Vertical equity is concerned with the distribution of impacts between people who differ in needs and abilities.

Key Actors & Stakeholders

The European Commission

The European Commission is the EU’s executive arm — in other words, it is the only institution that can propose new legislation, which is called the ‘right to initiative’, and remains responsible for implementing the decisions of Parliament and the Council. That means managing the day-to-day business of the European Union: monitoring the implementation of its policies, running its programmes and spending its funds.

DG Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE)

This department of the European Commission is directly responsible for developing  the European Union’s policies on mobility and transport. 

Member States

Transport is a shared competence of the EU and its Member States, which means that both sides are allowed to legislate. Usually, transport-related legislation in the EU is adopted under the ‘ordinary legislative procedure’. This means that the European Commission is in charge of initiating a legislative proposal, but the implementation and financing of the proposal remain the responsibility of the Member States. 

Persons with disabilities

Persons with disabilities often are unable to use shared mobility to access essential services, resulting in diminished life quality and mental health complications.

Key Conflicts

As disability is an umbrella term, encompassing everyone with slight vision impairments to someone who is deaf,  persons with disabilities’ needs are as unique as their disability. A person with vision impairments might not understand whether a station is still operating or not as they will not be able to see that trains or buses are not coming, or lack of ramps and elevators might inhibit people with mobility restrictions from using certain forms of shared mobility. To ensure equity, everyone’s needs must be addressed.

As previously mentioned, measuring equality is difficult, and as a result, checking whether a certain policy that promotes equity has been successful is hard. To combat this issue, the European Union preferes policies with qualitative research behind it. Despite this, Member States are the primary reason why these policies are failing to ensure that the Parliament’s vision is translated into action, as some of the Member States water down the legislation and may even not implement the policies in some cases. As it is difficult to quantify equity, it is difficult to audit whether a Member States’ implementation is up to standards.Lastly, European citizens are leading the charts in the amount paid for public transit, which further exacerbates the discrepancy between persons with disabilities and those without, as their poverty rate is 70% higher. For instance, a Dutch person pays 45 USD for public transport per month on average. Many Member States governments treat public transit as a luxury good, not as something that the public needs. The benefits of decreasing ticket prices are twofold; increasing accessibility to people who are less well-off and encouraging citizens to choose greener alternatives for commuting.

Measures in Place

Transport Innovation for Persons with disabilities needs Satisfaction (TRIPS)

TRIPS aims to design, describe and demonstrate practical steps to empower people with mobility challenges to play a central role in the design of inclusive digital mobility solutions. It facilitates dialogue between disabled users and transport experts, conducts research and runs pilot projects in seven cities. 

The Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030

The Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030 intends to tackle the diverse challenges that persons with disabilities face. It aims to progress in all areas of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, both at EU and national levels. The new strategy will help to deliver on President von der Leyen’s priorities of building a Union of Equality and delivering on the European Pillar of Social Rights.

Horizon Europe

Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion. It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth. Research and innovation around transforming transport is largely funded by Horizon Europe. 

Free public transit

Some cities, Luxembourg and Malta have also made public transit free of charge. Although fee reductions are common, making public transit free has yet to be implemented all across Europe.

Food for Thought


There is a balance that needs to be struck with policies regarding accessibility. Legislating and enforcing policies regarding equity takes resources and time, which can also be spent on something else, for instance, the sustainability goals in regard to public transit. Having said that, sustainability and disability are interconnected: to be fit for the future, the transport of tomorrow should be both green and inclusive. Secondly, the authority of the European Union over some aspects of Member States has been a contentious issue in some Member States. Enforcing strict laws about transit might receive some pushback from some citizens as it might be perceived as decreasing the country’s own autonomy. Questions also arise surrounding the chances and hurdles of the growing automation and digitalisation of the transport industry, and how those will  impact accessibility. How can the EU ensure the freedom of movement for all citizens, regardless of their abilities?

Further Research