Accessibility of information & services
This transnational horizontal work seeks to ensure that all results, products and deliverables relating to the START project are accessible and/or available in alternative formats for people with reduced mobility and people suffering from learning difficulties.
Since the project’s launch, technical workshops on accessibility have been held at La Rochelle in June 2009, in Rouen and Liverpool in 2010, and in Caen in March 2011.
Transport and ticketing services accessibility
The Cantabria regional authorities can be seen as a model for taking disabled users into consideration. In the context of START, they implemented:
- a new bilingual voice system (available in Spanish and English) which was installed in Santander bus station (the main transportation hub for travellers in the region).
- terminals for accessing information and checking the balance on contactless cards including readers situated at different heights, making the information more accessible to users with reduced mobility.
- contactless cards with Braille language, specially designed into the card for the partially sighted.
Digital accessibility
The members of the START project who are working on this issue wanted to emphasise digital accessibility for the remainder of the project.
Partners are working towards the fair distribution of transport information to all members of the public, including disabled people, in particular through the internet.
Therefore, the internet sites developed in the context of the START project, www.start-project.eu and www.integra-travel.eu are accessible for net surfers who suffer from sight, mobility and learning difficulties, in accordance with WCAG (global internet normalisation) to level AA.
This work relies on the knowledge and experience of many of the consortium partners in this field, such as the Spanish and the French. Spain and France have national regulations on digital accessibility.
The passenger-information site developed by the Lower-Normandy Region, www.commentjyvais.fr, is an example of information being available to all, through the provision of an “accessible” version which complies with digital accessibility standards.
To contact the technical coordinators of this work:
Mrs Claire Coulibaly c.coulibaly@crbn.fr
Miss Delphine Chaveneau – d.chaveneau@crbn.fr
Dr. Philip Barham, Expert on issues of accessibility for persons with reduced mobility – philip.barham@ttr-ltd.com
For more up to date information, please download the Project Findings Summary published in autumn 2011. The Final brochure will be released by the end of May 2012.