Accessible Travel Improvements
Ten Opportunities to Make Something Disabled Travellers Need
Oct 15, 2007
The Need for Innovation in Disabled Travellers' Services
There are many gaps in the world of goods and services available for travellers who are disabled or who have any sort of non-standard needs. On the one hand, these gaps are irritating and worse, but on the other, they are opportunities for new businesses, new products and new ways of getting things done.
Goods and Services Needed by Travellers who are Disabled
Here is an unofficial Top Ten list of travel innovations and improvements that would be appreciated. Some already exist, but are not widely known or widely available. Others are a little more fanciful but could lead to real-world solutions. Let creativity run rampant, let design ideas flow freely. The list:
- 10. Closed captioning on the television screens on airplanes.
- 9. A device to automatically make any door wide enough for a standard wheelchair to pass through.
- 8. A comprehensive, understandable disability awareness training program for everyone in the service industry.
- 7. Something to make it obvious when the in-flight (or in-ferry, in-cruise ship, on board-train, etc.) announcements are important and urgent, and to make the content of those announcements obvious to everyone, including those who do not speak the language of the announcements, or who cannot hear them clearly.
- 6. A device to create an audible signal when only a visual one is provided. For example, at crosswalks.
- 5. Travel agencies that are knowledgeable and skilled and specialized in booking travel for persons with non-standard needs. There are some; more are needed.
- 4. An adaptor for a standard vanity (e.g. one in a hotel) to make it comfortably usable from a seated position (whether in a wheelchair of seated on a hotel chair).
- 3. A database like what Europeforall.com is setting up, full of factual information about tourist services and destinations, enabling anyone to make their own accessibility determination.
- 2. A wheelchair lift that weighs next to nothing, folds up and stows away on the chair unobtrusively when not in use, and operates either by muscle power or by electricity, using the wheelchair battery for power.
- 1. A car that lets you sit in a wheelchair to drive it. The Vexel Quovis is already designed and produced, but it seems very difficult to find, and is limited to lower speeds.
What are your Top Ten?
About the picture: This is a chair made of wood - sawn tree branches, not milled lumber. The chair's webbing is woven from pieces of rubber or composite fire hose. This was built by one or more German prisoners of war held in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada during the Second World War. With minimal materials, using skill and creativity, the craftsman fashioned a comfortable and attractive chair that is still functional some 60 years later. As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention."
