Door to Door: a travel guide for disabled people

Before you travel: Help to travel independently

Increasingly, improvements to transport vehicles and facilities enable many disabled people to travel completely independently. However, for many disabled people who have not been used to travelling by public transport, the thought of travelling on trains, buses or trams independently can be a frightening prospect.

As a result, a growing number of local authorities are introducing 'travel training' schemes to help disabled people such as people with learning difficulties gain confidence in learning to travel independently. The Department for Transport (DfT) is developing an overall plan to encourage and support the availability of Travel Training throughout the country. Following research in 2007 on 139 travel training schemes already in existence the DfT has produced a "Travel Training - Discussion Document and Strategy Outline" which can be found at www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/inclusion/tts/ttsreview (Adobe Acrobat).

Travel training can help with:

getting on and off buses and trains,
understanding fares - how to pay them and handling money,
using, and getting in and out of, taxis,
understanding timetables and destination displays,
using modern technology such as 'smart cards' and ticket machines.

Travel training can take many different forms, e.g.: one-to-one training, 'buddy schemes' or classroom sessions. During the training, travel options can be explained, and practical and tailored help can be given in how to use public transport.

If you think you, or someone you know, could benefit from travel training to help gain confidence to use public transport independently, you can ask if travel training is offered by the Public Transport Department of your local authority (usually your county council or unitary authority), your local Passenger Transport Executive if you live in one of the Metropolitan Areas, Transport for London if you live in London, or Translink if you live in Northern Ireland. For their contact details see the section: Before you travel: Sources of information and advice.