In Great Britain there are some 200,000 people registered as blind or partially sighted: a figure which the Royal National Institute for the Blind has shown to be a considerable under-estimate of the true incidence of visual impairment in the population. Their estimate is of one million people or about two per cent of the population. This much higher level is supported by data from the recently published OPCS surveys of disability which found 1.7 million people with a degree of visual impairment among the adult population. Given the large numbers, it is not surprising that central and local government and many transport operators are concerned about improving information for and the safety of visually impaired people when they go out. The government has already produced national guidelines for a tactile surface to be used at controlled pedestrian crossings. Beyond this, however, there is a need for similar guidelines both for surfaces that warn of possible hazards (for example, steps or platform edges) and that act as guidance (for example, through pedestrian areas, to important public buildings, to bus stops, etc.) This paper reports on survey and experimental work carried out by the Centre for Transport Studies under contract to the Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL) during 1989. The objectives of the research were: (i) to identify the problems encountered by visually handicapped people when they travel; (ii) to investigate the number of different surface patterns that can be distinguished by visually handicapped people without causing confusion; and (iii) to establish whether or not these different surfaces could be learnt and remembered. The paper reports on the three stage research study comprising: (A) the results of 200 interviews with blind and partially-sighted people covering inter alia their levels of mobility and the problems they encounter when they go out; (B) the testing of 20 different types of tactile surface and the selection of six surfaces which satisfied criteria of easy recognition by visually-impaired people without causing undue problems to other footpath users, and (C) the results of a controlled learning experiment designed to test how well (or otherwise) a sample of blind and partially sighted people could learn and remember over time the meanings given to the six surfaces. The paper concludes with recommendations on the types of surfaces and the purposes for which they should be used and identifies further (mainly on-site) testing that is necessary to establish national standards on surface type and layout. (A) For the abstract of the TRRL Contractor Report No 257 see IRRD 841863.
Samenvatting