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Availability of accessible rail replacement coaches

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richw

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The solution to me is having a number of wheelchair accessible vehicles with the same capacity of wheelchair spaces as the train it’s replacing.
It’s called rail replacement, so as long they get you there whether it’s by taxi, bus or alternative means that is adequate. 10 coaches of 50 capacity plus say 8 wheelchair accessible taxis.
What happens if you turn up for a train and it is already at wheelchair capacity?
 
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kingqueen

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The solution to me is having a number of wheelchair accessible vehicles with the same capacity of wheelchair spaces as the train it’s replacing.
It’s called rail replacement, so as long they get you there whether it’s by taxi, bus or alternative means that is adequate. 10 coaches of 50 capacity plus say 8 wheelchair accessible taxis.
What happens if you turn up for a train and it is already at wheelchair capacity?
You can't travel, unless you have the space reserved or you can get out of your wheelchair or something.
If they had 10 coaches in continual use, and 8 wheelchair users in continual use, that might be okay. But the problem is, that's not what happens. So for example, last Friday they booked a taxi from Windermere to Oxenholme, from a taxi firm in Preston. An hour's drive away. And it all went wrong.
 

harz99

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It seems to me that the probable solution will be to use only BUSES that comply with the legislation and have one wheelchair space at least. Of course this will inconvenience a whole host of other RRB users, some with disabilities that don't require the permanent use of a wheelchair, some elderly, some with luggage, some with cycles, some with children, not least because where high capacity is needed double deck buses will be used and they already suffer from a restricted number of available lower deck seats due to complying with the PSVAR requirements relating to wheelchair users.

The problem is that most of the suitable buses are with bus operators who already use them 6 days, if not 7 days a week, for their intended purpose, and also utilise their staff in that way as well (drivers hours and rotas permitting). Will there be sufficient suitable buses - I doubt it.

Of course, even the exclusive use of such buses for RRB work does not solve the issue of the very few occasions when a second wheelchair user wishes to travel and the single space is already taken.

As I have said, and others have said before, be very careful what you wish for. Currently the vast majority of disabled passengers are able to travel on the buses and coaches provided for RR work, along with all the other groups I mentioned above, wheelchair users that are unable to travel out of their chairs have an admittedly imperfect system of accessible taxis to use, and that may well be the best outcome we can hope for.
 

lincman

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The situation is that at present all vehicles operating on rail replacement do comply to current legislation required for this type of service.
 

lincman

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Yes it is my opinion, and nothing on this thread has convinced me to change it. You do not require accessible vehicles on RR.
 

sbt

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As a side comment it should be noted that Assessable Taxis are not always available to supplement Busses and Coaches.

I work with a colleague who relies on a Wheelchair and he explained that in many places the bread and butter work that keeps Accessible Taxis on the road is the School Run, where they move children with mobility problems to and from school. This is all pre-booked and the number of Taxis capable of moving wheelchair passengers in any location outside one of the major cities is equal or less than the number of children in the area with mobility needs.

During the period of the School Run (which is longer than usual for this sort of traffic) these cars are simply not available, as my employer and the firm we contract to provide our Works Bus found out one evening when all available accessible vehicles from the transport firm broke down at the same time. Eventually my colleague got home, at 'Stupid O'Clock', courtesy of a close friend of his who is used to transporting him and has a suitable vehicle.

TLDR; There are periods when, outside major cities, accessible Taxis are effectively unavailable. RR services that rely on their availability are taking a risk.
 

Deafdoggie

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I don’t see there’s any ‘risk’ if there aren’t vehicles to operate RRB, there aren’t vehicles to operate. There’s nothing anyone can do about that. Many trains get cancelled with no RRB provision at all (looking at you EMT!). TOCs don’t see it as risky. If they had to provide wheelchair RRB each time, then very few cancelled trains would ever be replaced.

There simply aren’t enough low-floor buses for them to cover RRB work. Operators have very few spares. As a result maintenance is mainly carried out at night and on Sundays, so even when less buses operate there are no more actually available.

The ideal vehicles for RRB work, are Private Hire coaches. These are the very ones exempt from being wheelchair-accessible. I believe this is what the government had in mind when covering RRB work. The document may be poorly worded (though TOC and bus/coach operator lawyers don’t think so) thus creating doubt, but any challenge would just ensure it was clarified to this point.

I appreciate this isn’t the news people want to hear. But company lawyers have been all through it & can’t see a need that RRB MUST be wheelchair-accessible. Challenging it in court, and loosing, would strengthen their position on this. And only serve as a reminder to them they need make no provision at all. At least at the moment, they do make provision as and when they can. Challenging it in court, and winning, means there are simply no RRB provided for anyone. I can’t see any victory either way in this.

My advice, for what that’s worth, is to keep up the campaigning and try to win relationships with TOCs and DFT. but pursuing it legally will simply be expensive and, at best, a hollow victory. If there aren’t enough wheelchair-accessible coaches, and there aren’t, then all the legislation in the world isn’t going to change that.
 

Deafdoggie

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Do they? I don't get the impression that Northern do (from personal experience). Though I hear different things about e.g. GWR.

GWR being a FirstGroup company will often use First buses-which are all low floor. First make their bus companies give up buses each to provide RRB’s (for planned RRB, not emergency) But there still isn’t always enough, of course the instruction is just to provide x number of buses, and no one sends their best ones! But there is plenty of overtime each weekend for First drivers taking buses up and down the country. It’s still cheaper than arranging private hires. But as they make spare capacity in fleets ever tighter, there gets less and less buses. Most depots have under 8% spare vechicles now, so it’s tight. But with school & uni holidays they’ll be a bit of adjustment.
The irony is, of course, these buses are far older than the coaches that others use. But they are wheelchair-accessible as they have to be for the ‘dayjob’
 

Teflon Lettuce

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GWR being a FirstGroup company will often use First buses-which are all low floor. First make their bus companies give up buses each to provide RRB’s (for planned RRB, not emergency) But there still isn’t always enough, of course the instruction is just to provide x number of buses, and no one sends their best ones! But there is plenty of overtime each weekend for First drivers taking buses up and down the country. It’s still cheaper than arranging private hires. But as they make spare capacity in fleets ever tighter, there gets less and less buses. Most depots have under 8% spare vechicles now, so it’s tight. But with school & uni holidays they’ll be a bit of adjustment.
The irony is, of course, these buses are far older than the coaches that others use. But they are wheelchair-accessible as they have to be for the ‘dayjob’
sorry, but absolute rubbish.... during the recent blockades causing RRB's between Cardiff and Bristol First are conspicuous by the absence! in Cardiff you can see buses and coaches from just about every operator in SE Wales... not a single First vehicle though... and the same when there are RRB's at Swansea.

As to your contention that "most depots" have under 8% spare vehicles... where do you get that figure from? The established "norm" is for 17% engineering spares!
 

Deafdoggie

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Indeed 17% was the 'norm' but it is slowly being pushed down. By 2000 it was 10%, and it has fallen further since. Generally First Companies only have enough spare buses now to cover weekend work, and after protests from regional companies, they are now only normally asked to cover weekend (particularly Sunday) work, if it is more than that, then Private Hire is usually arranged, as the first fleet is so tight. Major replacements like Cardiff-Bristol will require too many now. but simple local replacements will often be first covered. But as fleets are driven ever tighter expect this to fall too.
 

Teflon Lettuce

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According to this post in First South West and Wales discussion First are providing at least some of the RRBs around the Severn Tunnel today.
yes, but the suggestion was that GWR uses FirstBus as a default provider of RRB which is blatantly untrue. If you were to go to Cardiff during the recent blockades First would be conspicuous by it's absence... most buses being provided by Cardiff Bus and NAT with coaches coming from a multiplicity of local coach operators in Cardiff!
 

JN114

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First do have a subsidiary for this, First Rail Support Solutions, however, it isn't necessarily all low floor vehicles, First have plenty of coaches in their fleets, and, it can be augmented with bought-in services. Arriva UK Trains have a similar unit based in Cardiff covering their various TOCs.

First Travel Solutions are effectively brokers for replacement buses - we (TOC) call them with our requirements and they contact local suppliers and arrange it for us - ostensibly this is to free us up to actually get on with our job of running the train service rather than spending ages ringing round bus companies hunting for vehicles. FTS don’t have a fleet of their own to call upon that I’m aware of, but they do make use of other First Bus vehicles where suitable. Certainly when contacting them we’re generally after coaches or small mini-buses - not service buses. From my requesting vehicles off them it seems that use of First Vehicles is generally the exception rather than the norm.
 

mde

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First Travel Solutions are effectively brokers for replacement buses - we (TOC) call them with our requirements and they contact local suppliers and arrange it for us - ostensibly this is to free us up to actually get on with our job of running the train service rather than spending ages ringing round bus companies hunting for vehicles. FTS don’t have a fleet of their own to call upon that I’m aware of, but they do make use of other First Bus vehicles where suitable. Certainly when contacting them we’re generally after coaches or small mini-buses - not service buses. From my requesting vehicles off them it seems that use of First Vehicles is generally the exception rather than the norm.
That's certainly my interpretation of how it works - same with Arriva. There would be a preference to use own stock if possible, but, its quite probably cheaper not to - and, in terms of availability it likely makes sense to have a call off contract rather than having a fleet of vehicles/drivers as they could end up paying people to literally do nothing at times.

First have a very few coaches in their fleets.....
Read 'coaches' as proper coaches and non PSVAR buses (e.g. step access) vehicles. Perfect for conventional RRB work, per the usual theory, but, useless for service bus work.
 

D2007wsm

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GWR being a FirstGroup company will often use First buses-which are all low floor. First make their bus companies give up buses each to provide RRB’s (for planned RRB, not emergency) But there still isn’t always enough, of course the instruction is just to provide x number of buses, and no one sends their best ones! But there is plenty of overtime each weekend for First drivers taking buses up and down the country. It’s still cheaper than arranging private hires. But as they make spare capacity in fleets ever tighter, there gets less and less buses. Most depots have under 8% spare vechicles now, so it’s tight. But with school & uni holidays they’ll be a bit of adjustment.
The irony is, of course, these buses are far older than the coaches that others use. But they are wheelchair-accessible as they have to be for the ‘dayjob’
When rail replacement is on, for instance the Bristol Temple Meads blockade over Easter. First West of England were operating lots of Rail Replacement services and a lot of these were operated using the newer vehicles and vehicles which had just been returned from refurbishment. They don't tend to use the older vehicles unless they have too.

During the Cardiff closure, there was at least 1 First WoE new Scania operating in the valleys for 2 weeks.
 

kingqueen

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Here's the DfT's view on scheduled rail replacement buses and accessibility. I have this civil servant's permission to publish it, without his contact details.

I've now asked him about non-scheduled "local" rail replacement services. It'll doubtless take him a few weeks to respond on that one.

DfT Bus and Taxi Accessibility Lead said:
In your original enquiry you noted that there were different schools of thought on the application of the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 (PSVAR) to vehicles providing rail replacement services, and asked for the Department's view. As usual I must be clear that I cannot provide you with legal advice and that you may wish to seek this for yourself before acting on any information provided.

Unfortunately the answer to your question is not as clear cut as you might have hoped, and the application of PSVAR to individual vehicles will depend upon the nature of the service they provide.

You rightly note that PSVAR provides a definition of "scheduled services" as:
"...a service, using one or more public service vehicles, for the carriage of passengers at separate fares -
(a) along specified routes,
(b) at specified times, and
(c) with passengers being taken up and set down at pre-determined stopping points, but does not include a tour service..."

PSVAR also provides a list of categories of service which should not be considered to be "scheduled services". This does not include rail replacement services.

As such, from a policy perspective, it is our view that PSVAR is likely to apply to rail replacement services meeting the above criteria. Again, whilst it is ultatimely for the Courts to interpret the legislation, we would consider that a fare has been paid for a journey even if it has been paid to a Train Operating Company rather than the operator of the rail replacement service.

All that said, there may be circumstances in which a rail replacement service does not meet all of the above criteria or indeed, where the criteria are met but the service is exempt from needing to comply with PSVAR on account of it being older than twenty years and being used for relevant services on fewer than twenty days in each calendar year. This exemption was included in PSVAR to enable operators to maintain services if compliant vehicles were temporarily unavailable however it is our understanding that it may sometimes be used for rail replacement services.

Therefore, in order to determine whether the service you referred to must comply with PSVAR you will need to identify whether it meets the criteria to be considered a local or scheduled service in its specific circumstances, and whether the twenty day exemption applies.

As I am sure you are aware it is a standard condition of train operators' Disabled People's Protection Policies (DPPPs) that alternative accessible transport will be provided to enabled disabled passengers to complete their journey during times of disruption. The Office of Rail and Road says:

"Train operators must provide, without extra charge, an appropriate alternative accessible service to take disabled passengers to the nearest or most convenient accessible station from where they can continue their journey.
This duty applies where:
• the station is inaccessible
• where, for whatever reason, substitute transport is provided to replace rail services (eg because of planned engineering works), and this alternative transport is inaccessible to disabled passengers
• where there is disruption to services at short notice that, for whatever reason, makes services inaccessible to disabled passengers"

Whilst it seems reasonable that disabled passengers should expect to be able to use the same transport as other passengers, without the disruption and delay of waiting for alternatives, this hopefully provides a backstop where PSVAR compliant services are not available.

I am sorry that I cannot provide a more definitive view but hope that it helps to answer your question.
 

Teflon Lettuce

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Here's the DfT's view on scheduled rail replacement buses and accessibility. I have this civil servant's permission to publish it, without his contact details.

I've now asked him about non-scheduled "local" rail replacement services. It'll doubtless take him a few weeks to respond on that one.
An interesting reply.... straight from the mouth of Sir Humphrey himself.... seems an answer that can be read to give any viewpoint you desire...

A question I asked earlier on here but no-one picked up on... when does a Rail Replacement service become "fully" accessible?

eg train has 8 carriages each with 1 wheelchair space. Each carriage has a nominal capacity of 100 passengers. A rail replacement service is in place for part of the route and is operated with vehicles of 50 seat capacity... meaning 16 vehicles needed for each train arrival... now the question is, if the train has only 8 wheelchair spaces, does the rail replacement service become "fully accessible" if only half the vehicles can take a wheelchair?
 

kingqueen

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An interesting reply.... straight from the mouth of Sir Humphrey himself.... seems an answer that can be read to give any viewpoint you desire...
I thought it was pretty clear actually.
DfT said:
from a policy perspective, it is our view that PSVAR is likely to apply to rail replacement services meeting the above criteria...
we would consider that a fare has been paid for a journey even if it has been paid to a Train Operating Company rather than the operator of the rail replacement service
So they are very clear that at least some rail replacement bus services are subject to PSVAR.
if the train has only 8 wheelchair spaces, does the rail service become "fully accessible" if only half the vehicles can take a wheelchair?
It is the vehicles in use that are subject to the PSVAR, not the service they run on. Any vehicles in use on a PSVAR-required service, have to be PSVAR compliant I.E. accessible.

I know it was illustrative only, but I've yet to see any train with 8 wheelchair spaces on it! Though I understand on the 2012 Paralympics, all the seats were removed from some Caledonian sleeper stock in order to transport a lot of wheelchair using Paralympians
 

Robertj21a

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Here's the DfT's view on scheduled rail replacement buses and accessibility. I have this civil servant's permission to publish it, without his contact details.

I've now asked him about non-scheduled "local" rail replacement services. It'll doubtless take him a few weeks to respond on that one.


Nice and clear and, as far as I can see, that's what I've been saying all along !
 

lincman

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I really do not think that there was any disagreement that any vehicle in use on a PSVAR required service , have to be PSVAR compliant. The problem arises with the fact that Rail Replacement do not fall into that category
 

Teflon Lettuce

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It is the vehicles in use that are subject to the PSVAR, not the service they run on. Any vehicles in use on a PSVAR-required service, have to be PSVAR compliant I.E. accessible.

I know it was illustrative only, but I've yet to see any train with 8 wheelchair spaces on it! Though I understand on the 2012 Paralympics, all the seats were removed from some Caledonian sleeper stock in order to transport a lot of wheelchair using Paralympians
So to give another example... the line is blockaded between Swansea and Cardiff and there's a Rail replacement service... all vehicles PSVAR compliant.... 16 vehicles all take a wheelchair each to Cardiff... who then try to board the same train... which doesn't have enough space for them... what would happen then? surely the point of the PSVAR being applied to Rail replacements is so that a wheelchair user isn't inconvienced and is able to complete there journey exactly as if the rail service was running normally?
 

JN114

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Typical Civil Servant waffle.

In short - “we can see what you’re saying, but we cannot definitely confirm it; speak to a lawyer if you want to use it in a court of law”
 

kingqueen

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I really do not think that there was any disagreement that any vehicle in use on a PSVAR required service , have to be PSVAR compliant. The problem arises with the fact that Rail Replacement do not fall into that category
The DFT specifically stated that rail replacement vehicles are not exempted from PSVAR as a category, and that provided they're not exempt by reason of age of the vehicles, they are likely to be considered to be PSVAR obligated.
 

kingqueen

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16 vehicles all take a wheelchair each to Cardiff... who then try to board the same train... which doesn't have enough space for them... what would happen then? surely the point of the PSVAR being applied to Rail replacements is so that a wheelchair user isn't inconvienced and is able to complete there journey exactly as if the rail service was running normally?
I'm not saying that there was this intent behind the way the law is constructed, or that I agree with it, I'm simply stating that this is my understanding of the effect of the law, whether intended or not.

Interesting that the DfT is clear that passengers have been charged a fare on rail replacement buses btw. They were totally clear about that.
 

Dai Corner

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It's almost as if 'Sir Humphrey' had read this thread and summarised.

The DFT specifically stated that rail replacement vehicles are not exempted from PSVAR as a category, and that provided they're not exempt by reason of age of the vehicles, they are likely to be considered to be PSVAR obligated.

Likely to be considered PSVAR obligated 'if they meet the above criteria'. There's still plenty for the lawyers to chew over in court if it ever goes that far. For example, does telling the driver to call at given stations at given times constitute specifying a route if he can choose how to drive between each stop according to traffic conditions, local knowledge, Sat Nav, Google Maps congestion reporting etc.?
 
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