New Disability Duties on Transport Providers 

Duties

Legislation, came into force on 25 January 2010, applying Disability Discrimination Act duties to the providers of transport services.

When the Act was passed in 1995, any service so far as it related to the use of a means of transport was exempted from its goods, facilities and services provisions. Those services associated with transport infrastructure, such as services at stations and airports, or information and timetabling services, are already covered.

The legislation covers the following types of vehicle:

• Buses and coaches (scheduled and leisure)
• Taxis
• Trains
• Rental vehicles
• Breakdown recovery vehicles.

The effect is that a transport provider must not discriminate against a disabled person:

• when providing, or not providing, a disabled person with a vehicle; or
• when providing, or not providing, a disabled person with services when he is travelling in a vehicle provided in the course of a transport service.

A transport provider has a duty to make certain kinds of reasonable adjustments for disabled people in respect of the provision or use of a vehicle. The duty to take reasonable steps to:

• change a practice, policy or procedure which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of those services.
• provide an auxiliary aid or service if it would enable (or make it easier for) disabled people to make use of those services.

Certain transport providers, as set out below, have a duty to overcome physical features:

Rental vehicles (constructed to carry passengers, with no more than eight seats in addition to the driver´s seat)

In the case of a service offered in relation to the provision or use of a rental vehicle, a transport provider also has a duty to:

• overcome a physical feature which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of this service, by:
• removing the feature; or
• altering it; or
• providing a reasonable means of avoiding it; or
• providing a reasonable alternative method of making the service available.

Breakdown recovery vehicles

In the case of a service provided through a breakdown recovery vehicle, a transport provider similarly has a duty to overcome a physical feature which makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people to make use of that service. However, the duty extends only to:

• providing a reasonable alternative method of making the service available.