Guide Dogs Built Environment Project at PEARL

For many disabled people, including people with a vision impairment, bus travel is the most convenient and affordable form of public transport to use.  However, some types of bus stop design that’s being introduced across the UK are creating a barrier to accessing bus services independently and with confidence. For blind and partially sighted people, being reassured that the street space they are walking through will not put them at greater risk of conflict with cyclists is another concern that has been raised.  

One of PEARL’s aims is to make the world equitable for all, and in line with this, we teamed up with Guide Dogs to explore design issues surrounding particular types of the built environment like Shared Bus Stop Boarders, Floating Island Bus Stops, Shared Pedestrian and Cycle Routes, as well as Segregated Cycle-Footways and Continuous Pavements. 

The experiment was constructed on a 1:1 scale at our laboratory to allow the options to be investigated, and there were focus group discussions to obtain views and experiences of people with lived experience of sight loss and other disabilities as well.

The research found that Shared Bus Stop Boarders cause more concern for disabled people than Floating Island Bus Stops. The real danger of Shared Bus Stop Boarders is that the cycle path conflicts with the space used by people boarding and leaving the bus, which cannot be made safe without guaranteeing that cyclists will not enter this area when a bus is there.

For floating Island Bus Stops, we found that the main issue for people at the bus stop is how to reach or leave the bus stop, which requires crossing the cycle lane. In the experiment, people with sight loss found this is a traumatic experience: they were only aware of an approaching cyclist after the cyclist had gone past them. This put them in a permanent sense of stress. The other concern was over the size of the floating island, also referred to as a platform area. At a normal kerbside bus stop, during busy periods, pedestrians can spread out along the adjacent footway safely. At a Floating Island Bus Stop, if pedestrians need more space this would involve spreading out onto either the cycle path or road, which would be unsafe. This basic safety problem is made worse by the fact that some people require more space than others at a bus stop, including wheelchair users, people travelling with a carer or assistance dog or other mobility aids. Design guidance provided in LTN 1/20 shows the width of a floating island should be 2.5m, but the research suggests this is inadequate.

In addition to the above, the research also found general agreement that in principle, a segregated cycle-footway, where there is a physical segregation between the space where a bicycle can travel and the space reserved for pedestrians, is a very sensible idea. However, we found that problems arise where the delineation between the two paths is missing.

Another finding was that a delineator that is just a painted line is insufficient. A continuous raised delineator is much easier for blind and vision impaired people using a cane to detect, and should be a preferred option. Tactile paving at the start/end of the segregated cycle-footway indicating which side is for the pedestrian and which for the cyclist was also found to be essential. Without this, it is easy for a person with a vision impairment to get confused.

For continuous pavements, we found that the main problem is a pedestrian knowing when they are actually in the roadway and when they are on the footway. This situation is made worse when there is no tactile paving in place. The laboratory experiments showed quite clearly that having tactile paving made a positive difference for blind and vision impaired people.

The research carried out by PEARL, and subsequent recommendations developed by Guide Dogs and PEARL, was a significant contributor to the UK Government requesting local authorities pausing the installation of Bus Stop Boarders in addition to the publication of new interim guidance regarding the design standards of Floating Bus Stops.