Browsing by Author "Chang, S. K. Jason"

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    Accessible Tourism and the Role of Public Transport Provision: Comparing the Access to Attractions for Tourists with and without Disabilities in Bangkok
    (American Society of Civil Engineers, 2020) Fernandes Ferreira, Amanda; Leite Damaceno, Aline; Chang, S. K. Jason
    Tourism is acknowledged as one of the world's most important economic sectors, responsible for a significant share of global GDP. Transport is a key element for this industry, as one of the factors that affects the attractiveness of a tourist destination. Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 130 million people have some sort of disability that requires the use of a wheelchair and that number will tend to increase, due to the rapidly aging population. The provision of wheelchair-friendly transportation, particularly in the public sphere, is essential to ensuring access to tourist attractions. In that context, in this paper we aim to assess how the absence of fully accessible public transportation affects the tourism of wheelchair users. To perform this study, the city of Bangkok was chosen, which ranked as number one in the list of most visited destinations in 2018. As the literature shows that tourists usually prefer to use railways rather than buses when they are traveling to unfamiliar places, this study considered only the urban rail systems in the analysis. In order to evaluate the influence that the provision of wheelchair-friendly transportation has on the access to tourism, the most visited tourist attractions, as well as their locations within the city's municipal area, were identified and sorted. Data on the number of lines and stations, accessibility status of each station, and its distance from the tourist destination were also collected. The geographic information system tool was then used to analyze the station coverage. The results showed that the lack of accessibility in some stations or their distance from the destinations can create inequality of access. Moreover, insufficient provision of accessibility is a critical issue that can inhibit the tourism of people in wheelchairs, which in turn can lead to a potential economic loss for the sector.
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    Wheelchair accessibility of urban rail systems: Some preliminary findings of a global overview
    (2021) Ferreira, Amanda Fernandes; Leite, Aline Damaceno; Pereira, Lorena de Freitas; Neves, Juliana Muniz de Jesus; Pinheiro, Mirian Greiner de Oliveira; Chang, S. K. Jason
    Personal mobility is one of the fundamental human rights and it is vital to ensuring a productive and dignified life. It is estimated that there are more than 130 million people worldwide with a physical disability that requires the use of a wheelchair. In this context, public transport plays an important role, as a key element in guaranteeing equity in mobility and access to basic needs such as education, healthcare, employment and leisure. Urban rail systems represent an important medium and high-capacity mode of transport, largely used in daily journeys, especially within larger cities. Given the background, the aim of this article is to investigate wheelchair accessibility in urban rail systems around the world. In order to present this global overview, the official websites of the 212 urban rail systems in operation in 59 countries worldwide were consulted. The systems were classified into 7 different levels of accessibility, according to their percentage of declared adapted stations. The systems were then grouped per country and per United Nations geographical region, to enable an evaluation that takes into consideration different hierarchical perspectives. The results show that Eastern Asia, Western Europe and Northern America are the locations that have the highest number of systems. However, when it comes to accessibility, Northern America still has a very heterogeneous scenario, with a significant number of "Average" systems, while Asia and Europe together have more than half of the systems classified as "Very good" or "Fully accessible". The presence of urban rail systems and the accessibility of those systems do not follow a strict pattern and some historical events are pointed to in order to try to explain the scenario. The study shows that there is still a long way to go when it comes to the accessibility of wheelchair users around the world and the lack of accessibility is not a problem only in developing countries. (C) 2021 International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd.