26 June 2025
The Government recently responded to the Transport Select Committee’s 2025 report into accessible transport. It referred to current or future programmes and processes, but it didn’t give me hope that much was going to happen fast that would make things much better.
I guess that puts me with the 45 percent of disabled people in London who, according to campaign group Transport for All, think transport accessibility will get worse in the next ten years, compared with the 32 percent who think it will improve.
That’s sobering when you recall that the barriers to travel already faced by disabled people mean they make far fewer trips than non-disabled people – and so have access to fewer opportunities made possible by transport. All of which got me thinking about some of the challenges which need to be tackled in the capital.
What does success look like?
I start by wondering whether there is shared clarity about what “good” looks like in London. Short of perfection – the same level of good accessibility, whether or not you have some form of impairment – is there a compelling vision of the future which transport providers can aim for, and by when?
The Mayor’s Transport Strategy does have an aim by 2041 to cut the additional time taken by using only the step-free transport network – as well as a goal to make half of Tube stations step-free by 2030. All good stuff – but I’m not sure this fully captures where we would like to get to: step-free is not the same thing as fully accessible.
For example, TfL regularly asks disabled Londoners whether they think the organisation cares about its customers (fewer than six in ten currently agree). Should TfL target an ambitious survey score as part of the future they wish to deliver?
Then there are the 400 or so national rail stations in our remit – over 100 of which are operated by TfL – and the trains which serve them. The Government has committed to a national rail accessibility roadmap later this year. Expectations about what it will say are being managed, but maybe a roadmap covering TfL and non-Tfl transport networks together wouldn’t be a bad thing to have for London.
How do we get there?
Even if we can all broadly agree (maybe even co-create) a comprehensive picture of where we want to get to in the short and long term, there are so many things which need to be fixed.
That’s not surprising when you think of the individual stages which make up any door-to-door journey and the number of trips made daily by the 1.2 million disabled Londoners. But among other things it calls for an approach which both covers many bases and prioritises the measures which can make an impact. And that largely comes down to action on two fronts.
The first is infrastructure – streets, stations, stops and vehicles – where some things are front of mind. On TfL’s patch, shortlisting the next tranche of Tube stations to achieve the 2030 step-free access target is one. Tackling station lift closures, which have increased post-Covid, is another.
More generally, street obstacles were the biggest single barrier to travel cited by disabled people in a National Centre for Accessible Transport survey – more so in London than nationally. On rail, the London Assembly recently heard that 42 percent of stations in London are step-free, compared with 54 percent nationally. Ending that differential and speeding up project delivery under the Access for All programme should be priorities.
The second is the information and staff on whom disabled people rely. When we recently travelled the network as part of our disability awareness training, we saw good and bad examples of staff support. TfL provides employee training on disability and equality, but it feels like more needs to be done to measure its effectiveness and make its application on the ground more consistent. On rail, a 60 percent rise in demand for passenger assistance has not been matched by an increase in resources. Hardly surprising, then, that service quality falls short more often than it should – and something else that should be improved as a matter of priority.
Who drives progress?
With so much to be done, putting aside for now the crunch question of funding, it’s also important that transport providers are geared so that the pace of improvement can be increased and sustained.
Government reform of the railways, by bringing track and train closer together, offers the prospect of removing some of the organisational barriers which can get in the way of serving disabled rail passengers.
Integration by itself is not enough, of course. In London, there has been an integrated provider for years in TfL and yet there is plenty still to do, as indicated by the long list of actions in its Equity in Motion programme to improve accessibility and inclusion.
One idea is that perhaps London should have a Disability Commissioner to drive change. While accessibility should be everyone’s responsibility, it’s not a bad thought, and you could see it as a build on other TfL initiatives, such as its Independent Disability Advisory Group.
But if, for whatever reason, a new Commissioner is not created, maybe there are other ways of achieving a similar result. How about making more of the current lead responsibility for accessibility on TfL’s top team and/or on the TfL Board – and replicating the idea at GBR for national rail?
That person might not be able to find lots more money for projects, but they could give added focus to what is already planned. And one of their first tasks could be to follow up the recommendations in the London Assembly Transport Committee’s forthcoming report into accessibility and inclusion in transport planning.
