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INFORMED SOURCES June 2000

Disability Regulations must be revised

Disability provision can only be a good thing – except when inadequately drafted regulations disadvantage able and disabled alike

After this column raised some dust on the subject of the application of the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations (Modern Railways August 1999), I was looking forward to being roundly abused at the Department of Environment, Transport & the Regions Conference on the subject which was eventually held last December. In fact, peace broke out, partly because there were many disabled travellers there, as opposed to the zealots who represent them.

Since Informed Sources started covering disability issues I have met many disabled rail users – and an inspiring group they are too, determined not to have their mobility impaired when it comes to using public transport. And, unlike their representatives, there is often praise for the way the railways have improved.

So my expectation of being branded as the unacceptable face of railway journalism was dashed. Indeed, when I suggested that some requirements in the RVAR could be applied retrospectively at minimum cost – such as painting the doors on GNER's all blue stealth trains a contrasting colour to help the visually impaired, Anne Frye the xx of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) remarked, with only a touch of acid ‘how nice to see Modern Railways being more draconian than us'.

Seriously flawed

But, the RVAR remain seriously flawed in three respects. So once more into the breach.

Regular readers will recall that a late change to the wording of the RVAR made it illegal for a train's door closing warning to sound unless the doors were closed by a member of the train crew. This meant that if a passenger or an automatic timer closed the doors they had to slide shut silently.

This was, of course, dangerous, since a blind person would not know the doors were closing, either on a timer or through malicious operation the close button, and could be trapped. It wouldn't be much fun, for that matter, for someone detraining a couple of toddlers and a baby buggy for the doors to close unannounced.

Amazingly, DPTAC was prepared to fight Train Operating Companies who argued for the sensible, not to say blooming obvious, arrangement of a warning sound whatever made the doors close. Amazingly, Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate had to step in and insist on exemptions.

Exemptions? Yes, because the RVAR is a legal requirement. And, as you can read in the box, putting a non-compliant vehicle into service is a criminal offence – of which more anon. This means that you can't just apply common sense.

Now, according to the DETR's draft guidance document on the RVAR (still in draft, you notice, coming on for 18months after the Regulations came into effect) it has been agreed with HMRI that the regulations will be amended to make a warning sound mandatory whenever and however the doors close.

So, if one amendment is on the books, there are at least two more anomalies that need correcting.

Baby Blair

Now, imagine that you are on crutches walking down a train, or you are carrying notebook, camera, briefcase, a cup of coffee and a danish pastry, or, to be really topical, that you are the caring, sharing Prime Minister with Baby Blair on one arm and a bag of nappy changing kit in your spare hand. And you come to a vestibule door.

In a Mk 3 coach, you step on the tread plate and the door opens. In an Adtranz Turbostar you break a light beam and the door opens. But in an RVAR Compliant vehicle you have to press a button.

No joke

You think I jest? The RVAR Guidance is unambiguous. ‘DETR is aware that a number of new vehicles have been fitted with optical beam operated sensors that open internal doors from the passenger saloon into the vestibules and between vehicles in a train. Such devices are not compliant with the Regulations and any operator considering them should discuss the matter with the DETR at the earliest possible opportunity'.

According to the DETR, although some short term exemptions have been granted for beam activated doors if operators want to apply for extensions to these exemptions ‘it is likely that they will be required to provide evidence that the controls are suitable for use by blind and visually impaired people'.

Eh? Blind person walks along train, breaks beam, door opens. Ditto partially sighted person. You don't have to actually ‘use' the control. And our local department store has recently put automatically opening doors at its entrance with disabled access facilities. Of course, I may have missed something and I would be glad to hear the views of visually handicapped readers

To digress, there have been cases of people failing to break the beam on trains. One operator adopted an ingenious solution to make absolutely sure of operation.

A yellow ‘button' was painted on the door. When you reached out to press it your arm broke the beam and the door opened.

I am assured that the following conversation is true.

DETR Disability expert on seeing painted button.

‘That button must have a raised symbol so you can tell what it does by touch'.

Train operator ‘But it's not designed to be touched, it's a virtual button'.

But the guidance is clear: in the RVAR ‘control device' refers to the actual control operated by the passenger, for example a button or a handle.

And even if the visually impaired do have problems with automatic doors, isn't this a case where the greater good prevails? So Regulation 5 on Door controls needs to be amended to allow for automatic operation by.

Literary diversion

Finally we come to the worst anomaly, and one where the disability Taliban are really confused. Read Regulation 3(2) and join me Under Milk Wood.

It is early morning, mourning dark, at Llaregyb (Harbour) Station as Polly Garter's Nissan Micra potters into the forecourt. She has brought blind Captain Cat to catch the 05.45, the first train of the day, to Cardiff for the long awaited operation to remove his cataracts.

But there is no train in the station.

Evans the Station explains the problem. When the WalesRail Class 170 came in the previous night the visual passenger information system was not working. And although Llareggyb Junction sidings is classed as a light maintenance depot, all it has is a fuelling point.

‘Dioo, I'm sorry' says Evans the Station, ‘but if the VPIS is not working after a visit to a Light Maintenance Depot, the train is not compliant with the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations'.

‘So what' asks Captain Cat?

‘Well, it would be a criminal act under Section 46(3) of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 for WalesRail to use in service a regulated rail vehicle for the carriage of fare paying passengers if that vehicle did not conform to any provision of the Regulations. And the fine could be £2,500'.

‘But it's not your money, boyo' says Polly Garter.

‘Well it could be', says Evans, ‘because the offence can be both a corporate and an individual one, so an individual responsible for a non-compliance with the Regulations can be prosecuted – and that would be me, or my boss if I asked him'.

So Captain Cat misses his hospital appointment and goes back on the waiting list all because a visual passenger information system he couldn't see in the first place isn't working.

Catch all

There are several factors contributing to this anomaly. First, there is the catch all nature of the definition of a Light Maintenance Depot taken from the Railways Act 1993. Such a depot is used for light maintenance services (honestly) which are defined as a) refuelling or exterior cleaning and b)carrying out maintenance work normally done at regular intervals of 12 months or less to prepare traction and rolling stock for service.

So the fuelling point at Llaregyb (Harbour) is on a par with, say, Bounds Green. And while Bounds Green has lots of spares and fitters to fit them, Llaregyb LMD has only Jones the fuel.

And even a big depot can have problems. Say that, across a train fleet serviced by your depot, on average, one passenger information system black box, which drives the auto passenger address and VPIS, fails a month. This justifies two replacement boxes in the spares store. Soddes Law guarantees that one night three control boxes go down. So one train stays on depot until you can restock.

At the conference Anne Fry made it clear that the DETR wasn't going ‘to chase people to court' on day one after a failure. ‘It's when equipment is out of service for three weeks or three months', she explained, adding ‘We'll only be interested if there is persistent or deliberate default'.

So, in the Government's eyes it's OK for TOC management to encourage staff to commit a criminal offence if, to quote the nurse in Mr Midshipman Easy excusing her illegitimate baby ‘it was very little one'.

Sorry, DETR, that is not on for two reasons. First, the safe railway runs on the rule book. You can't tell staff to commit criminal offences. If it's OK to break the law to get the Captain to his hospital on time, why not, in the same situation, let the train out with the AWS or TPWS switched out?

Second, how does Evans the station know that WaleRail is not persistently defaulting elsewhere on its network and the 05.45 is the last straw that brings down anti-discrimination prosecution?

Really, the logical move would be to drop the criminal offence nonsense. Practically, the obvious solution is to remove the ‘day after a visit to an LMD' requirement and just leave it that failures must be rectified within six working days. If a fleet manager or depot engineer can't live with that then we are in big trouble.

At that December Conference we were told that the Regulations can be changed ‘relatively easily and that they will be changed and improved'. ‘But' said one speaker ‘we will not respond to the railway media – however intemperate'. Well, let's see if the reasonable approach above works.

Continues.........