The Perfect Accessible Minibus? Capturing this Elusive Beast

This paper examines the context for developing accessible small minibuses in the European market. It looks at past experience and future prospects. The purpose is to consider the feasibility of intervening to organize the demand-side of the market in order to produce more accessible vehicles at a more affordable price. Despite the development of accessible taxis and low floor line buses, there remains a requirement for accessible vehicles with a passenger capacity somewhere in between. These are required for low capacity bus services, paratransit operations, large taxi services, small school groups, social care and welfare functions, etc, especially the 5 to 8 passenger vehicles are popular all over Europe. Yet these vehicles, which are used heavily for disabled transport, are often of poor accessibility. In different European countries efforts have been made to design and produce better vehicles. These are documented for the UK and the Netherlands. The efforts failed commercially, because the basic vehicle used had to be largely rebuilt. It may triple the cost of the vehicle! An analysis of design shows that there is a convergence in the ideas on problems and solutions, which creates a perspective of a common market. The character and the volume of the vast European market should be studied. On the basis of that a commercially attractive market could be created by both bottom up and top down approaches, organizing buyers unions and issuing national or international standards. This would make it attractive car factories like Fiat and Mercedes to develop light vehicles with front wheel drive and lower floors than presently.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transport Canada

  1000 Sherbrooke Street, West, P.O. Box 549
  Montreal, Quebec  Canada  H3A 2R3
• Authors:
  • de Boer, Ane
  • Taylor, John
  • Cazemier, Otto
  • Kuhlmann, Rolf
• Conference:
  • 11th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons (TRANSED)
  • Location: Montreal , Canada
  • Date: 2007-6-18 to 2007-6-22
• Publication Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Photos; References;
• Pagination: 5p
• Monograph Title: Transed 2007. Benchmarking, Evaluation and Vision for the Future

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Bus transportation; Low floor vehicles; Minibuses; Paratransit services; Persons with disabilities; Public transit; Taxi services; Transit operating agencies; Transportation disadvantaged persons
• Identifier Terms: Transed
• Geographic Terms: Netherlands; United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01130289
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 19 2009 9:28AM