Analysis of accessibility map concept for integrated transfer hub

Abstract

Transportation accessibility for people with disabilities is the challenge of our time. In Poland, there are more than 3 million people with disabilities who have legal proof of disability. In reality, there are many more - from 4 to as many as 7 million. Thus, there is a need to actively include this group of people in social life, including in the area of public transportation. This work aims to present issues related to the accessibility of integrated interchanges for people with special needs. The work also points to a key issue for transport system managers related to and aggregation of knowledge necessary to implement the changes in transport infrastructure. Information about the needs of people with disabilities is, in turn, a prerequisite for proper universal design, which is already becoming noticeable in many areas of social and economic life. As technology evolves, so do the methods of obtaining information about the needs of people with disabilities. The difficulty here, however, is to develop tools that take into account the degree of disability of the specific people from whom we would like to obtain information. The authors in the paper justify, on the one hand, measures that aim to eliminate the difficulties that a person with special needs may encounter when traveling by various means of transportation, and on the other hand, point to certain solutions and tools that are used to acquire knowledge that will consequently allow the precise adaptation of the current infrastructure to the needs precisely defined by these people. The aggregation of knowledge also has additional significance in terms of increasing transportation accessibility for people with disabilities. It enables the informed design of new facilities and supporting infrastructure to take into account the changing needs of people with disabilities.