Engineers have a vital role to play in making the system more inclusive, as highlighted in IMechE’s recent En Route to Inclusive Public Transport report. But the challenge is not just an engineering problem, according to institution expert Holley Reece-Barkell – it is an engineering opportunity as well.
Improving the network is “an opportunity to rethink, redesign and reimagine, an opportunity to collaborate across civil, mechanical, electrical, software engineering disciplines,” Reece-Barkell said. “It’s an opportunity to align accessibility with net zero, with economic resilience and with ethical responsibility. But, most importantly, it’s an opportunity to ensure that public transport is truly for all of the public.”
The chair of the IMechE Culture and Inclusion Committee made the rallying call at the institution’s latest Engineering Needs Everyone event, held at the Royal Society of Medicine’s headquarters in London last Tuesday (17 March). The evening featured speakers including Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, a record-breaking Paralympian and member of the House of Lords, and Sarah Teichler, an inclusive design specialist from Transport for London (TfL).
The second annual flagship event – following Inclusivity by Design in 2025 – built on the recent report, which highlighted the significant challenges faced on public transport by the one in four people who are disabled, as well as elderly people, women, families and others. The publication called for a truly inclusive public transport system, with measures including improved funding, better use of data and meaningful engagement with disadvantaged groups during transport design.
‘When people are excluded, we all lose out’
Cluttered pavements, a lack of step-free access, poor staff assistance and unreliable information – these accessibility barriers and many more affect millions of people every day. More than 90% of disabled people face barriers when they’re travelling, according to the National Centre for Accessible Transport (NCAT), with 84% facing longer journey times and 79% deciding to travel less often.
“These barriers don’t just make journeys harder,” Reece-Barkell said as she opened the event. “They limit access to education, healthcare and leisure – and when people are excluded from opportunity, we all lose out. So accessible transport isn’t just a moral obligation; it’s an economic one too.”
A “staggering” £72bn could be gained by closing the transport accessibility gap, according to the Motability Foundation – and a systems approach is needed to grasp all the opportunities.
“Inclusive transport isn’t just trains and buses,” Reece-Barkell continued. “It’s everything from the moment that people leave their home until they reach their destination: it’s the pavement, it’s the bus shelter, it’s those ticket machines, it’s the platform, it’s the train, and it’s all the information provided along the way. And it’s every decision that engineers, planners and policymakers make in between. There is little value in designing a beautiful train if the person who needs it most can’t get down the stairs to the platform.”
Thankfully, she said, there are recent examples of good practice. These include wider aisles and automatic sliding steps on new Merseyrail trains, introduced after extensive consultation with passengers.
Inclusive design from the outset
People with disabilities of all kinds need to be embedded at every stage of the design process for transport systems, as repeatedly highlighted at the event. “Where is the voice of disabled people?” asked Baroness Grey-Thompson. “At a lot of places, it’s a panel at the end of the decision-making process. It’s not at the heart of decision making, and that’s where I think we have some of the problems that we’re dealing with today.”
One of Britain’s greatest Paralympians, with 16 medals – including 11 gold – Baroness Grey-Thompson is no stranger to transport disruption. Taking up to 300 long train journeys a year between the North East of England and London or Cardiff for work, she said she frequently finds a lack of wheelchair spaces on trains. For the Baroness, who is a wheelchair user, and her husband, who is a part-time wheelchair user, that means they cannot travel together. Rail replacement buses, she said, are often not wheelchair-accessible at all. Other issues encountered by the multiple word record-breaking Paralympian include ticket machines that are too high off the ground, out-of-order lifts and incorrect station information.
Issues are often so disruptive and persistent because disabled people were not engaged in the design and implementation of systems, speakers said.
“The biggest thing that can happen to the design process is that we build inclusive design into it right from the outset – not just when we get to the design bit, but actually when we’re setting objectives and developing briefs – and then continue that thread all the way through, beyond delivery, looking at evaluation, lessons learned, and then feeding that back into the process,” said TfL’s Teichler.
She continued: “Don’t wait until you have a solution to go out and ask people for their feedback. Work together, because you will find new ideas that you didn’t even know existed.” That process needs to involve remunerating people, she said, an issue also highlighted by the Baroness.
The approach, known as coproduction, will be the subject of an upcoming toolkit from the NCAT, as mentioned by CEO Emma Partlow at the event.
A panel conversation also covered the use of language, and how engineers and designers can build their confidence to engage in conversations around accessibility.
“I think when we think about language, it’s really easy to get caught up in these debates and spend a lot of time and energy,” Partlow said. “Language is fundamentally important… but, for me, and I feel this personally and professionally, it’s more around the intent and the principle behind that language use.
“Social model thinking shifts the onus away from the person; people are not disabled because of their bodies, they’re living with impairments. They are disabled because of the barriers, many of which we’ve spoken about here today.”
She added: “I would say it’s far more hazardous and risky that people don’t talk about disability and accessibility because they’re scared of getting it wrong… Have those awkward and uncomfortable moments, because that’s when change happens.”
Products guided by community
The event also featured a presentation from Tom Morgan, founder and CEO of Supersmith, which is developing a lightweight, compact and foldable alternative to bulky mobility scooters. Launching in the coming months, development of the 3Scooter was initially inspired by Morgan’s sister, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in her early 30s and has used mobility scooters for the last 15 to 20 years.
While the vehicles have played an important role in his sister maintaining a “very active” life, Morgan said that conventional mobility scooters “provide an exceptionally poor experience”. Most importantly, he said, they are unsafe, with five times the number of fatalities per distance travelled compared with motorbikes because of their instability.
They are also “unsociable” because of a low seating position, he said. “The consequence of that is just a less socially empowering and confident position.” Half of people with MS are “too embarrassed” to use one, he said. People do not leave their homes as a result, he continued, or feel less good about themselves if they do.
Seven years ago, along with two co-founders, Morgan started looking at the root-cause issue – the stability. They developed robotic technology that adjusts the ‘legs’ of the scooter so it can maintain stability, including while cornering. This also allows users to sit higher up, at up to 90% of their standing height. Other onboard technology includes environmental sensors and wheels that can climb up pavement kerbs.
The result, he said, is “a product that can genuinely bring benefits to people”. “The way we’ve done that is with a fantastic community of people throughout the process, to ensure that they make the decisions and guide the priorities, not us,” he added.
The 3Scooter could slot into public transport networks in a shared micro-mobility system, he said, which has been explored with NCAT. “That’s one solution. There’s more that needs to be done to enable the entire start-to-end for that, but that’s something that we’re more than capable – collectively – of solving.”
Launched following the success of the Verena Holmes anniversary events in 2024, which celebrated the legacy of IMechE’s first female member, Engineering Needs Everyone events ask who engineering is for and how to shape a more inclusive profession and society.
En Route to Inclusive Public Transport makes recommendations for the government, transport operators, infrastructure owners and manufacturers, educators and professional engineering institutions. Click here to read it online.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.