Six departments issued a document to further strengthen age-friendly and barrier-free transport services

Recently, six departments including the Ministry of Transport, the National Railway Administration, and the Civil Aviation Administration of China jointly issued the Circular on Further Strengthening Age-friendly and Barrier-free Transport Services (hereinafter referred to as the Circular). The Circular sets out requirements for fully promoting the construction of an age-friendly and barrier-free transport environment from five aspects, including strengthening the planning and development of age-friendly and barrier-free transport facilities, enhancing the allocation and renovation of age-friendly and barrier-free transport equipment, improving the travel experience in age-friendly and barrier-free cities, continuously optimizing integrated transportation services for age-friendly barrier-free travel, and enhancing age-friendly barrier-free travel information services.

The Circular requires that local authorities, based on the travel characteristics and development trends of persons with disabilities and the elderly in their regions, conduct in-depth research into the needs for constructing age-friendly barrier-free travel environments. It also calls for integrating the construction of age-friendly barrier-free travel environments into comprehensive transportation system planning and urban public transportation planning.

Local transportation departments should accelerate the promotion and application of the 95128 taxi reservation service hotline, supervise taxi operators to maintain the flag-down service for cruising taxis, and continuously optimize and improve the “one-click booking” function. At locations with high elderly activity, such as large communities and hospitals, “one-click booking” waiting points and convenient booking buttons should be set up according to local conditions to make it easier for the elderly to use on-demand services. Besides, “Caring Taxi Fleets,” “Senior Care Taxi Fleets,” and “Lei Feng Taxi Fleets” could be established according to local conditions to provide regular paired assistance services for people with disabilities and the elderly in need.

Local authorities should urge service operators to continue accepting cash, card payments, paper tickets, vouchers, and identification documents and optimize window-based human services and volunteer services to help persons with disabilities, the elderly, and other groups enjoy travel services in an equitable and convenient manner. They should supervise and guide railway transport enterprises to further implement requirements related to special ticket quotas for passengers with disabilities, optimize and improve ticketing functions on the 12306 website and mobile app, and promote the automatic recognition and prioritization of elderly passengers in selecting lower berths. They should supervise relevant operating units to establish special service channels and accessible service windows based on the service characteristics of different transportation modes, including railways, highways, waterways, and civil aviation, to provide reserved seats, early ticket checking and boarding, guidance and assistance for getting off and exiting the station, and wheelchair access to and from the station for persons with disabilities and the elderly.