Download this page in PDF formatOne of my readers sent me a very interesting case study that was conducted in September 2011 and published by SAGE publishing.
I contacted the authors and through their efforts, SAGE has graciously waved fees for the pdf and have allowed me to place a copy of the document Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting-2011-Vredenburgh-584-8 for download on this site.
On behalf of the disability community who use the Metro system, I want to publicly thank Lois Smith (Communications Director for Human Factors and Ergonomics Society) and Daniel Sawney (Editorial Assistant – Journals at SAGE Publications Inc) for their assistance in helping to make this material public. Our thanks extends to the authors of this case study who were also instrumental in allowing free distribution: Alison G. Vredenburgh and Ilene B. Zackowitz (both of Vredenburgh & Associates, Inc.)
This is the article’s abstract:
Research in Motion
A Case Study Evaluating the Accessibility of Public Transit in our Nation’s Capital
Alison G. Vredenburgh
Vredenburgh & Associates, Inc. Carlsbad, California
Ilene B. Zackowitz
Vredenburgh & Associates, Inc. Carlsbad, California
alisonv@roadrunner.com
ilenez@me.com
Abstract
Although the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress two decades ago, there are still public facilities that have a long way to go in order to meet the goal of being “barrier-free.” Unfortunately, some of these places include public transportation systems that many people with disabilities rely on daily. During a recent consulting job regarding accessibility and environmental design, we decided to put the public Metro system in Washington, DC to the test. We wanted to determine how easy it is to access and use the system for people who rely on wheelchairs. We were surprised that this case study revealed serious and multiple barriers to accessibility. We learned that many human factors issues regarding accessible design were not achieved by this system, even at a modest level.
For those of you who are accessing this site during rush via smartphone (and can’t download a nearly 4 MB pdf file) the pdf is converted to html here.
I will add my comments to this tomorrow.
Other articles of interest:
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