ENIL is part of a 3-year European project called TRIPS, which was launched in February, and is funded by the European Union through Horizon 2020. The main aim of the project is to make the transport in seven European cities – Brussels, Stockholm, Sofia, Bologna, Cagliari, Lisbon and Zagreb – more accessible for everyone. To do this, the project brings different people in each city together in co-production groups. In these groups, disabled people, transport providers, city councilors and other people involved in transport work together to find ways to make the transport in the city more accessible.
The past few months have been very intense for TRIPS, with two important outputs – a report based on 1) the social media content and 2) in-depth interviews with disabled people in the seven project cities. Both analyses focus on mobility needs, challenges, and attitudes toward mobility solutions and disabled users’ approach to the transport barriers they face daily.
The results revealed that in all the pilot cities, disabled passengers are still restricted in many aspects when it comes to choosing public transportation. However, people living in the largest cities still have more options than disabled people living in more remote or rural areas. Based on our qualitative study results, the interviewees in all the cities noted some investment had been made in reducing the barriers for disabled persons who travel in Public Transport. Nevertheless, they also confessed that most investments were made in engineering solutions: ramps to enable people in wheelchairs to change level; audio information to support visually impaired people. When regard to the needs of people with mental health issues, it is clear that much less has been done and changes are needed!
You can find the two reports on the official TRIPS website: https://trips-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/TRIPS-D.2.2-Qualitative-Insights-report.pdf
As the next step, we are planning to start the survey about future mobility trends, where disabled users from the whole Europe will be invited to participate. Stay tuned!
