Empowering Staff: Enabling Passengers - The Role of Training in Delivering Accessible and Inclusive Passenger Transport Services
When budgets are tight and cuts are on the agenda, training is very often an early casualty and dismissed as a luxury that cannot be afforded. CILT’s latest guidance note Empowering Staff: Enabling Passengers, demonstrates the significant business advantages to be gained from delivering accessible and inclusive transport services.
The Institute’s Accessibility and Inclusion Forum has produced a guidance note for all public transport operators which highlights the importance of knowledgeable and capable staff who offer accessible and inclusive transport services for passengers across all modes of transport.
Empowering Staff: Enabling Passengers indicates that there is a beneficial social, legal and financial case for training staff in delivering accessible and inclusive transport services. Offering trained and capable staff in this area will encourage a significant number of passengers, many of whom do not have the confidence to travel today, to venture out and enjoy the benefits of accessible and inclusive public transport. Encouraging the growing number of actual and potential passengers by giving them the confidence and support that they need to travel not only makes business sense but it may also avoid risks of breaching UK and European law.
The purpose of this guidance note is to:
- Set out the business case for consistent and good quality training;
- Summarise the extensive and growing range of legal obligations that now apply across the transport sector to train staff in meeting the needs of older and disabled passengers;
- Offer some tips on what training in this area should comprise both in terms of meeting legal obligations and demonstrating best practice
The business case is clear:
- Research indicates that almost 50% of people who are blind or partially sighted would like to travel more often than they do.
- Disabled and older people are those least likely to have access to a private car. For many older people who have not been regular public transport users, the prospect of giving up driving is made even more daunting by unfamiliarity with public transport.
- A lack of confidence is the biggest single barrier to public transport use among older and disabled people. Ensuring that staff demostrate empathy and practical knowledge helps to instill confidence
- Additionally of course, focusing on the needs of disabled and older people will also deliver a better service to passengers across the board.
You can see Empowering Staff: Enabling Passengers at http://bit.ly/163zsR6
ENDS
Notes to editors
Empowering Staff: Enabling Passengers has been produced by the Accessibility and Inclusion Forum of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. The Forum brings together experts from across all transport sectors to work to improve the accessibility and inclusion of our transport network. If you would like to find out about training opportunities in delivering accessible and inclusive transport services or if you have any questions regarding this guidance note or the work of the forum please contact:
Daniel Parker-Klein
CILT Policy Manager
Daniel.parker-klein@ciltuk.org.uk
07894 620655
About CILT
The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK - CILT(UK) - is the independent professional body for individuals and companies associated with logistics and transport.
For media enquiries about the CILT please contact David Jinks: david.jinks@ciltuk.org.uk 01536 740117; or Melanie Stark: melanie.stark@ciltuk.org.uk 01536 740159
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