RTRI REPORT Jan. 2003
PAPERS

A Survey on the Needs of Visually Impaired Persons in Using Railway Facilities

Naoki MIZUKAMI,  Kohei FUJINAMI,
Hisato OHNO,  Hiroaki SUZUKI


  There are a number of physical and informational barriers for visually impaired persons who utilize railways alone. Railway companies have arranged a variety of standard measures to assist those people according to a guideline. However, there are some concrete measures for this purpose that are not pointed out in the guideline. In addition, an interactive guidance system for passengers is being developed in recent years as IT technology advances. In order to improve the guidance and establish a useful system for visually impaired persons, we need to know what information they need and what their troubles are in using railways. Therefore, we had interviews about their problems and needs for improving the means to utilize railways. This report describes several points for improvement and necessary information that should be provided to users.


* Full papers of RTRI Report are written in Japanese.

Copyright (c) 2003 Railway Technical Research Institute