"Access Systems" wrote:

low floor with ramp is accessible, unless a lot of ramps have been
retrofitted the first couple thousand low floors were delived without the
ramps....will double check with my source in London.

[...]

my check shows that as of Sept approx 3500 of the 5500 LT buses are Low
floor, most of these have a kneeling feature and space on board for
wheelchairs but most do not comply with DDA (UK-ADA) "only the low floor
buses with the double center doors have the power ramps"


Your source is mistaken. The TfL website states (as referenced in a
previous message) that "84% of the total bus fleet of 6,663 [about 5600] is
wheelchair accessible". Not merely "low-floor" - specifically "wheelchair
accessible". Any bus that is low-floor but does not have a wheelchair ramp
is regarded as part of the 16% of the fleet that is *not* wheelchair
accessible.

It is true that the first few hundred low-floor buses in London were not
fitted with wheelchair ramps^. A few have had ramps retrofitted; a few may
remain in London service unmodified. However, the vast majority have been
withdrawn from London service and replaced by newer low-floor buses that
*do* have wheelchair ramps fitted.



It may seem strange that so many low-floor buses entered service without
wheelchair ramps. While with hindsight this clearly was a short-sighted
policy, it did sort of make sense at the time.

Thanks to relatively high ridership, and (by US standards) relatively narrow
roads that require more manoeuvrable (ie shorter) vehicles, many London bus
routes need double-deckers. By about 1996, UK bus technology had progressed
to the stage where low-floor single-deckers were becoming standard, but
low-floor double-deckers (which presented a greater technical challenge)
were still some way off. It was not possible to fit folding-step wheelchair
lifts to standard-floor buses (these lifts are not legal in the UK if
operated (US-style) from the cab - and, as London bus drivers carry cash and
give change, it is not generally considered safe for them to leave the cab
to operate such lifts). Hence, normal double-deck buses could not be made
wheelchair-accessible.

So, at this time there was no concept of a London-wide wheelchair-accessible
bus network. Without such a concept, there was no perceived need for *any*
bus to be wheelchair-accessible (even though this would have been quite
possible for single-deckers). However, low-floor buses *were* considered
desirable, because they offered easier access to the "ambulant disabled" and
those with pushchairs (strollers). Hence, low-floor buses (but without
wheelchair ramps) were specified for most single-deck routes.

A couple of years later, low-floor double-deckers were developed, and the
concept of a wheelchair-accessible London-wide bus network came into vogue.
For the last four years, all new buses for London service (both single-deck
and double-deck, and including the articulated single-deck buses that have
been introduced on a handful of routes since Summer 2002) have been
low-floor and wheelchair-accessible.



^ = I don't have the figures, but I'd be surprised if it was as many as two
thousand. Still, I could be wrong.




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MetroGnome
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