Title

Improving accessibility for passengers with special needs: the VIA Rail Canada experience

Authors

Karl Coffen

Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

2007

Subject Area

Infrastructure - Manoeuvering areas, Mobility - Mobility aid, Mobility - Wheelchair, Transport planning - Accessibility planning

Abstract

VIA Rail Canada is an independent Crown Corporation that was established in 1977 to provide Canadians with safe, efficient and environmentally responsible passenger rail service. We operate in this vast land to over 450 communities, including many where rail travel is the only year-round, all-weather transportation service available. We operate close to 500 trains weekly on 12,500 kilometres of track. With approximately 3,000 employees, VIA carried over four million passengers for a total of 881 million passenger miles last year. And in rural and remote areas, VIA operates services designated by the government to meet regional transportation needs. (1) That is who we are and what we do. But of course, there is a lot more to operating Canada’s national passenger rail service beyond these basic facts. Our Vision is to be the Canadian leader of service excellence in passenger transportation. Our Mission is to work together to provide travel experiences that anticipate the needs and exceed the expectations of our passengers. Our Values are Customer Focus, Respect and Passion about passenger rail. (2) Our vision, mission and particularly our values of customer focus and respect become even more critical when we speak of provision of services to those of our passengers with special needs. The title of this paper, though, does not limit ensuring accessibility for the elderly and those with disabilities, but rather anyone who has a special need. This could be something as simple as needing special meals or coping with allergies to requiring assistance on board, or help for someone with a cognitive limitation. So what exactly has the VIA experience been? That’s what I’d like to talk to you about today. The word accessible, for VIA Rail, involves significant contributions from departments such as Real Estate – Development and Design, Technical Services, Health & Safety, Customer Relations, Finance, Rolling Stock and Interior Furnishings, Training, Communications, Customer Experience and more. When you get down to it, it is a story of teamwork… of caring, of wanting to do more, of co-ordinating our efforts in 10 different departments at over 100 locations across this country, and all of us trying to achieve the same goals: responding to passengers with special needs, including accessibility. You probably noticed that I used the plural goals and not the singular goal. That’s because accessibility is very different for people with physical, sensory and cognitive disabilities. Accessibility to someone who uses a wheelchair is not at all the same thing as accessibility to someone who is blind, or to someone with a limited cognitive ability. There have been bumps in the road, or on the rails, if you prefer, along the way, and there are bumps ahead of us. We don’t have all the answers and I don’t expect we ever will, because of the dynamic nature of the transportation and service industries. VIA’s key strength in the passenger travel marketplace is our superior customer service…(3) and that superior customer service is delivered by a well-trained workforce that aligns the company mission and vision with the company values of Customer Focus, Respect and Passion for passenger rail travel. What does VIA Rail do to make travel easier for passengers with special needs? A wide variety of elements starting with a well-trained staff, our free escort policy, our special service request forms, our endorsement of the Canadian Transportation Agency’s Mediation Process, wheelchair lifts, award-winning architecture and our accessibility mindset, renovating older structures, wheelchair-accessible compartments and trains, people movers, Garaventa Lifts, on-train wheelchairs, Codes of Practice and VIA’s Accessibility Review Committee.