Singapore
Other initiatives to make land transport more accessible to Singaporeans include installing the stroller restraint system on all buses and designing new taxi stands to be without barriers.
File photo of passengers boarding a train at Hougang MRT Station. (Photo: TODAY)
SINGAPORE: Designated priority cabins for “vulnerable” commuters will be piloted on one of the rail lines, announced Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Baey Yam Keng on Thursday (Mar 7).
These priority cabins are meant for seniors, persons with disabilities and families with your children, he said in his Committee of Supply speech.
“Other commuters are encouraged to give way to them in these cabins, which will be located near the station lifts where possible,” said Mr Baey.
READ: ‘45-minute city, 20-minute towns’: Advisory panel outlines vision for Land Transport Master Plan 2040
As part of plans to make the transport infrastructure more user friendly for various segments of the society, a stroller restraint system will be progressively installed on all buses by 2020, after the one-year trial on service 69 in June 2017 received “positive feedback”, he said.
All new taxi stands will also be designed to be without barriers, he added.
As for those with disabilities, Mr Baey said the ministry wants to make information such as bus service numbers and bus stop destinations more accessible.
For instance, he said LTA started a trial this January on a mobile app – the Mobility Assistance for the Visually Impaired and Special Users (MAVIS) – that provides audio announcements both on the bus and at the bus stop to commuters with special needs. The trial started with three buses on Service 139, which serves the Enabling Village, but they will be redeployed to Service 141 in May as it serves the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped.
He said the ministry will consider users’ feedback and evaluate the feasibility of providing such assistive tech on more public buses.
This is in addition to the commitment to make all public buses wheelchair accessible by 2020, Mr Baey said.
An example of single post design on the sheltered walkways which aims to maximise the width of the walkways. (Photo: LTA)
Mr Baey noted that one of the strategies put forward by the Land Transport Master Plan advisory panel is to design an inclusive land transport infrastructure. Efforts on this front are already underway such as making all MRT stations and bus interchanges barrier-free.
The ministry also completed a five-year programme to add 200km of sheltered walkways to make walking to public transport nodes more convenient, he said. With more than 60 new MRT stations underway, another 100km of sheltered walkways will be added by 2029, said Mr Baey.
