Project title: Monitoring compliance with the Code of Practice on Accessible Public Services in the public transport sector.

Country: Ireland.

Client: National Disability Authority, Ireland.

Year: 2015.

Alliance partner involved: Interactions, Ireland.

Description: Interactions was commissioned to develop and test methodologies to assess and monitor the accessibility of public transport services in Ireland. The Code of Practice on Accessible Public Services specifies certain standards with which public bodies have to comply. It was necesarry to monitor compliance with these standards but no broad methodology existed which could be used across the public sector. Working with a broad group of stakeholders including local authorities, public transport agencies and operators, we developed three approaches to measure accessibility: 1. Self-assessment whereby public bodies rate their own performance on a number of criteria. 2. Mystery Shopping – users with disabilities used the service and recorded their experiences, rating the service on numerous criteria assessing the door-to-door journey. 3. Customer Satisfaction Surveys – real-time users of the service rate their experiences on the whole door-to-door journey in real-time using an online survey and mobile app. These methodologies were based on the standards specified in the Code of Practice and our experience working in EU projects ISEMOA and METPEX using the Social Model of Disability, which considers that individuals can be disabled not by any impairment, but by inaccessible design of vehicles and infrastructure, and by attitudes of others.