ScotRail reaffirmed its commitment to making the railway accessible for all by recently helping deliver a training course at Milngavie station.
Students from Glasgow Caledonian University’s Graduate Diploma in Low Vision Rehabilitation put themselves in the shoes of someone who is visually impaired during the course, which took place on Wednesday 19 April 2017.
As part of an exercise to understand what a person with sight problems would experience, the students practised stepping on and off a train while visually impaired themselves.
By taking part, students were provided with the knowledge and experience to not only teach a visually impaired person the route to the railway station using a long-cane, but have the skills to familiarise the person with the main features of the station and train itself.
John Wilson, Community Liaison Executive for the ScotRail Alliance, said: “We’re committed to making the railway accessible for all and want to help build confidence in as many people as possible when using our services.
“Events like this are one way that we are supporting customers with visual impairment or restricted mobility.
“Over the past year our hard working staff have carried out 78,000 pre-booked passenger assists – making sure that people who need a bit of help to travel receive it.”
Alistair Smith, Lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: “Visually impaired travellers can be apprehensive about using public transport – particularly when boarding and alighting trains.
“It is a Rehabilitation Workers job to develop their mobility skills so that they can use public transport independently and with confidence.
“This session allowed the students to develop their teaching skills so they are able to teach long-cane users to travel independently.”
Notes
The ScotRail Alliance offers a free assisted travel service, open to anyone who would like more support when travelling on one of its trains. In a typical year, more than more than 78,000 assisted journeys are enabled through this service.
We aim to provide assistance to those who need help when travelling on our network whether this has been booked in advance or not, however providing at least four hours’ notice allows us to ensure staff are in place at both departure and arrival station to assist customers.
We encourage anyone who may require additional assistance to let us know their travel plans so we can help them in any way we can. More details can be found on our website: http://www.scotrail.co.uk/plan-your-journey/accessible-travel