9th October
1998
Mr Kym Duggan
Special Adviser, Disability Discrimination
Attorney-General’s Department
Robert Garran Offices
BARTON ACT 2601
Response to
Regulatory Impact Statement on
Draft Disability Standards for Accessible Public
Transport
Dear Mr Duggan,
The Physical Disability
Council of NSW (PDCN) is the major peak
organisation in NSW representing people with
physical disabilities. PDCN provides the
communication link between people with a
physical disability and decision makers in
government, business and the local
community.
The development of
Disability Standards for Accessible Public
Transport is of great interest to PDCN and its
members due to the potential impact of the
Standards on the ability of people with physical
disabilities to participate fully in and as
equal citizens of their communities.
PDCN’s response to
the Draft Regulation Impact Statement follows.
The response is based on extensive consultations
in rural and metropolitan NSW over the last two
years with people with a wide range of physical
disabilities. These consultations are summarised
in Position
Papers '99. One of
the loud clear messages from these consultations
is that people with physical disabilities are
isolated, have a substantially higher cost and
lower standard of living due to inaccessible
transport, and that the inability to get around
freely creates one of the greatest obstacles to
the meaningful participation by people with
physical disabilities in the
community.
Although the RIS shows
that the net cost of implementing the Draft
Standard is relatively small in an overall sense
($3.00 p.a. per Australian citizen or $68.30
p.a. per beneficiary using the average
scenario), we are concerned that there are still
a number of factors which overstate the costs
and understate the benefits. These biases and
errors are pointed out in the
submission.
We are also concerned that
Sections 7 and 8 bring up new issues for
consideration. While there may be merit in
further consideration of enforcement mechanisms,
flexibility, inter-relationships with other
Standards and the impact of technology on
reviews, we do not believe that any of these
issues are critical for current consideration
and can instead be considered at the next review
in five years time.
We are also concerned that
even though the overall benefits of an
accessible environment far outweigh the costs of
making it accessible, the differential sectoral
impacts and the inability of our political
institutions to deal with these will lead to a
delay and watering down of the Standards, and
that ideological blinkers of sectoral impacts
work against both economic efficiency and social
equity.
The section on measuring
the benefits of an accessible environment has
been written in consultation with Dr. Jack
Frisch, a consultant economist with a Ph.D. from
Princeton University, and the father of a
14-year-old girl with a physical
disability.
Should you wish to discuss
any aspect of this response please feel free to
call me on (02) 9639 9110 or 0412 539
110.
Yours
sincerely,
John Moxon
President
RESPONSE TO REGULATION
IMPACT STATEMENT ON DRAFT DISABILITY STANDARDS
FOR ACCESSIBLE PUBLIC TRANSPORT
October
1998
Demand for Accessible
Public Transport - Section 3
Biased
Reading
While mention is made in
the RIS of the increase in ageing, and the
possibility of increased patronage from
transferring from specialised modes of
transport, there is no acknowledgement of the
increase in the number of trips that people with
disabilities are likely to make as the community
becomes more accessible. PDCN understands that a
5% increase in patronage is consistent with mere
population growth, ageing and transfer from
specialised forms of transport but does not
include increased mobility. If the number of
trips taken weekly by people with disabilities
were to increase substantially (as we expect it
would) we understand that the increase in
patronage would be closer to 13% than
5%.
In addition, the PDCN
“reading” of the RIS patronage
patterns is different from the analysis
presented in the RIS, with the thrust of the
difference being what PDCN perceives to be a
bias towards minimising projections in the RIS
patronage projections. The bias is evident in
three places in Section 3:
- discounting of the
Blackpool and Adelaide experiences. If the
Blackpool experience was not discounted, then
the average patronage increase would be 5.5%
rather than “probably in the range of
1-4%.”.
- highlighting the
“new v old” and
“transfer” effects and relegating
the “short-term” effect to an
afterthought. PDCN’s reading is that if
the “new versus old” and
“transfer” effects were more like
1% than 3%, and if the downward bias of the
short trials was of the order of 2%, then the
long-term effect of patronage impacts of low
floor buses would be more like 6.5% (i.e. the
5.5% average of Table 3.2 minus a 1%
“new v old effect” plus a 2%
short-term effect.). With a 3% “new v.
old” effect, the patronage effect would
be 4.5%. Thus our reading of Section 3 is
that patronage would increase in the range of
4.5%-6.5% rather than “probably in the
range of 1-4%.” and
- odd and
incomprehensible use of a 3-5% patronage
increase due to people with disabilities in
the summary Section 3.5.4 where the figures
reported in Section 3.5.2 are 3-11% (Year 20)
and 3-14% (Year 30). It appears to PDCN that
if one were to use the Section 3.5.2 numbers
discussed above, the highlighted Section
3.5.4 should read “overall patronage
increase in the long term in the range 5%-
19% (Year 20) or 6%-22% (Year 30)”
instead of the “5%-13%” which the
RIS concludes with, and which is reproduced
in the overall summary on page 38. (We also
note that the upper limit of the off-peak
patronage effect is put at yet another figure
- 23% - in the second-last paragraph of page
24).
Clarification is needed
on these apparent discrepancies, since there
is a very significant difference between an
upper figure of 19% or 22% or 23% and the upper
figure of 13% which forms the basis of the
analysis in Section 5.
International
Experience
In addition to
questioning the conclusions of the RIS in its
own terms, PDCN has serious reservations
about the limited scope of the international
evidence cited. It is well known that low
floor buses are becoming the standard in
Europe. We find it hard to believe that
they are becoming a standard unless it has
been found to be rational to have them become
a standard, and we find it hard to believe
that there is no data on the impact of their
introduction.
Appraisal of Options -
Section 4
PDCN accepts the
conclusion of the RIS that disability standards
in transport are the preferred
option.
Expected Impacts -
Section 5
5.3.1 - Patronage
Impacts
The PDCN view
that the long-term patronage effect could be
6-22% rather than 5- 13%, and would certainly
be in the upper range if account were taken
of the increased number of trips that people
with disabilities are likely to be taking as
the environment as a whole become more
accessible has already been expressed
above.
5.3.2 - Operational
Impacts
PDCN questions
the RIS’s discussion of operational
impacts.
Capacity
Loss
Firstly, we note the
wide discrepancy between the 10% reduction in
capacity reported for the private sector in
NSW and the 0.6% reduction in Victoria. We
accept the view that the differences may
reflect the different “physical,
economic and regulatory environment” but
would add that the differences also reflect a
different political, ideological and cultural
environment. We would like to have it on
record that in the PDCN’s view the
private bus operators in NSW are hostile to
the notion of providing accessible transport
to people with disabilities and that their
figures should be treated as unreliable. We
are concerned that the
Attorney-General’s Department took
information at face value rather than
investigate the wide discrepancies in
financial estimates.
Time
Taken
We question the 2-3
minutes estimate of the time taken for
passengers with wheelchair to board and
alight from low floor buses. The experience
of PDCN members who have trialed low floor
buses is that the sum of the boarding and
alighting times is more like 30 seconds if
the driver deploys the ramp and lowers the
bus efficiently. We believe that the Symons
Travers Morgan study is biased upwards
because bus drivers were still inexperienced
in driving and using the low floor buses in
1995.
While we accept that it
might take 2-3 minutes to board and alight on
hoist-equipped buses in rural areas, we
question the significance of 2-3 or even 5
minutes on a 1-hour trip in a rural
area.
Capacity
Underutilisation in Peak
Periods
The assumption that
there will be a loss of capacity in public
route services because of the spaces
allocated to wheelchairs assumes that the
space is wasted when they are not being
utilised by a wheelchair user. This is not
valid since the spaces can have pulldown
seats, and when the seats are not pulled
down, the two allocated spaces can probably
be used by three or even four standing
passengers.
PDCN does not accept
the argument that the “allocated
spaces” imply a proportional loss of
capacity which will necessitate an increase
in bus purchases proportional to the number
of allocated spaces. Because we are not privy
to the technical modeling behind the
calculation of increased fleet sizes
resulting from the standards, we believe that
the assumptions behind the modeling needs to
be questioned and not taken at face value
from interested industry
consultants.
5.3.3 - Financial
Impacts
We note that the estimated
net costs of implementing the draft Transport
Standards has been reduced from $6,900 million
to $3,737. We believe that these net costs are
still an overestimate because:
We have no way of
assessing the cost estimates for bus and rail
infrastructure and whether or not there is bias
or not, but we understand that the estimates for
buses is based on the assumption that every
metropolitan and rural bus stop will need to
have $10,000 spent on it. We believe that this
is grossly overestimated because:
- not every rural bus
stop will need to be modified since many of
the buses operating in rural areas will have
hoists which do not require bus stop
modifications
- we have been advised
that only the most “difficult”
stops will require $10,000 of expenditure,
and that the majority of bus stops will not
require no more than $3,000 of expenditure
due to disability requirement.
5.4 Net
Impacts
Sectoral
Benefits
Even though the net
impact figures relate only to sectoral
benefit and can in no way be seen as a
cost-benefit analysis, we believe that the
net impact figures show the low order of
magnitude of the costs of implementing the
current draft Transport Standards.
We note that the net
sector costs after accounting for
cross-sectoral benefits (mainly to government
expenditures) over 20 years turn out to be
$2384, $1082 and minus $1530 million per
annum depending on whether the cross-sectoral
benefits are low, medium or high. On an
annual basis, this turns out to be $150.50,
$68.30 or minus $96.60 per annum per
beneficiary. Another way of viewing these are
as net costs of $6.62, $3.00 or minus $4.25
per annum per Australian citizen.
These net costs (or
benefit in the case of the high-benefit
scenario) would seem even more insignificant
in the “grand scheme of things”
if:
- the biases outlined
above were eliminated
- the cross-sectoral
benefits were accounted for over 30
years
- the RIS adopted a
“willingness to pay” national
approach along cost-benefit lines (see
below) and broadened its view of
cross-sectoral benefits.
Economy-Wide
Benefits
The RIS does not take
an economy-wide approach as should be done in
a cost-benefit analysis. In particular, PDCN
believes that an estimate of the dollar value
of the benefits of an accessible community
ought to be attempted. While we recognise
that accessible transport is only one part of
an accessible community, we also believe it
is one of the crucial parts on which the
others depend.
PDCN believes that the
value an accessible environment is the sum of
three effects:
i) the
insurance value of an accessible
environment to the community as a
whole
ii) the lost
productivity due to an inaccessible
environment
iii) the value of
Other Beneficiaries of an Accessible
Environment
i) Communal
Willingness to Pay/Insurance Value of an
Accessible Environment
We believe that people
who do not currently have a disability or a
family member or friend with a disability
would draw comfort and therefore benefit from
having an accessible environment in the event
that they or a family member or friend
acquire a disability. There is no market for
insuring against the loss of socio-economic
participation because of disability, but PDCN
believes that application of a
“shadow” insurance premium of 0.1%
across the population is a “fair value
risk-neutral” premium given that the
probability of acquiring a disability is
greater than 1,000 to 1.
Applying this estimate
to National Income implies a benefit across
the population of $420 million per annum, or
$8.4 billion over 20 years. (It should be
noted that if we assume that 4.4% of the
population is likely to be disadvantaged by
inaccessible transport and that people would
be willing to insure against the possibility
of being disadvantaged, then an actuarially
fair “shadow” premium would be
forty-four times greater than that suggested
above i.e. a benefit of over $16 billion per
annum).
ii. Lost
Productivity Due to an Inaccessible
Environment
PDCN believes that the
RIS should have made some attempt to estimate
the lost productivity due to an inaccessible
built environment. The concept is alluded to
on page 36 but no attempt is made to estimate
the magnitude of the effect.
Given that the
participation rate in the workforce of the
80,000 wheelchair users in the community is
38% as compared to 63% for the population as
a whole, if 12,000 wheelchair users were made
employable as a result of an accessible
social and built environment - raising the
participation rate by 15% to 53% - and they
had an average productivity of $25,000 per
annum, then National Income would increase by
$300 million per annum, or $6 billion over 20
years. (We believe that this is an
underestimate of an accessible environment
because it includes only wheelchair users and
therefore excludes people with vision and
hearing impairments, and tens of thousands of
people with other ambulant handicaps who are
unable to work as a result of an inaccessible
community).
iii. Willingness to
Pay by Other Beneficiaries of an Accessible
Environment
There are of course
difficulties in attempting to estimate the
value of an accessible environment to carers,
friends, and family and to people with prams
and trolleys, and it is difficult to measure
the value of an accessible environment to
people with disabilities.
We feel it is
appropriate to suggest that the value of an
accessible environment (including an
accessible transport system) to wheelchair
users would be at least $4,000 per year per
person. This estimate is based on the extra
cost of living with a disability due to
having non-discretionary costs due to lack of
access. Thus for example, it includes the
cost of having to pay for taxis rather than
using public transport; it includes the cost
of employing carers for assistance; and it
includes the higher price of goods because of
the decreased choice due to lack of
access.
Given the 80,000
wheelchair users in Australia, this comes to
a value of $320 million per annum, or $6.4
billion over 20 years. (We believe this to be
an underestimate of the economy-wide benefit
because it only accounts for the small number
of people with disabilities who use
wheelchairs, and excludes people with
ambulant disabilities, and people with
hearing and vision impairments but we
acknowledge that some of these effects may
have been accounted for in the cross-sectoral
benefits in Section 5.5 on page
44.)
Funding - Section
6
6.3 Dedicated School
Buses
As outlined
above, the study overestimates the cost of
dedicated school buses by assuming that all
runs would need to be accessible and using
low-floor technology, when we would suggest
that:
- school buses need
only be accessible if there is a child
with a disability needing to
travel
- school buses in
rural areas could use a hoist instead of
having to purchase new low floor
buses
PDCN does not accept
any options other than access on a
case-by-case basis, and flexibility in
implementation. We believe it is both
inefficient and inequitable to ask students
and parents to continue to bear the burden of
inaccessible transport or to continue with
parallel transport. A good deal of the banter
and socialisation that is an integral part of
education occurs on the school bus, and to
continue to exclude students is to continue
with a system of apartheid when it comes to
people with disabilities.
If it causes undue
financial hardship on bus companies to make a
school bus run accessible when a student with
a physical disability uses the run, then the
cost should be shared by all Australians. As
shown above, this comes to $3.00 per annum
per Australian citizen.
6.4 Rear Axle
Limits
PDCN supports the
proposal put to the National Road Transport
Council to allow for greater mass on the rear
axle of buses.
6.5 Accelerated
Replacement and Retrofit
PDCN finds it to
be obscene and discriminatory to entertain
the notion of extending the implementation
period for trams because only wheelchair
users benefit from retrofitting. Extension of
the retro-fitting period ignores the synergy
and inter-dependence referred to later in the
RIS of the various aspects of disability
discrimination, and it particularly ignores
the synergy and inter-dependence of the
various transport modes.
Thus, if a trip
involves using a tram and train, then the
inaccessibility of the tram undermines the
value of the accessibility of the train.
Similarly, weakening one DDA Standard
undermines the utility of other
Standards.
6.6 Wheelchair
Spaces
PDCN rejects any
suggestion of reducing the number of
allocated spaces provided in buses with more
than 32 seats, and strongly objects to having
only one allocated space in buses with less
than 32 seats. It may come as a surprise to
some people but the facts are that many
people who use wheelchairs have friends and
spouses who also use wheelchairs. Is anyone
suggesting that husband and wife should be
separated in their trips to the shops, to
friends, to the movies or to holiday
destinations? This sounds very much like the
old apartheid system in South Africa where
husband and wife were separated from one
another as well as from people who were
“differently coloured”.
6.7 Funding
Options
While we are
neutral about who funds the implementation of
the Standard, we demand that it be recognised
that currently it is people with physical
disabilities who fund the inaccessibility of
transport. The funding is not solely in cash
terms, but is also in terms of economic
opportunities foregone, quality of life and
quality of citizenship. The cost if without
doubt in the thousands of dollars for
wheelchair users and people with severe
mobility disabilities.
We believe that a
properly conducted national cost-benefit
analysis instead of a sectoral impact
analysis would show the benefit of an
accessible environment (including an
accessible transport system). We recognise
that there are some “losers” in the
implementation system, but we believe it is
up to government to lead the way and find
ways of compensating the losers.
We are concerned that
it is a lack of vision and poor institutional
and management mechanisms which will lead to
sectoral issues dominating the overwhelming
national interest to make the transport
system accessible. This funding issue is a
technical issue for politicians on both sides
of all Houses of Parliament at both State and
Federal levels for it is they who have
created the artificial barriers of State and
Commonwealth, it is they who have allowed the
tax base to be eroded, and it is they who
need the vision to lead in the national
interest rather than sectional
interests.
Enforcement and Review
- Section 7 and 8
7.2
Enforcement
PDCN supports the
concerns raised about the inadequacy of the
use of HREOC as the sole enforcement
mechanism for compliance with the Standards
and sees merit in putting some enforcement
mechanism into the Standards. We believe
however that it is more important to
implement the Standards immediately rather
than to delay implementation while the issue
is being considered. The enforcement issue
can be raised when the Transport Standards
are reviewed after five years. The Standards
will never be perfect but a time line needs
to be drawn, and we believe that the time for
implementation has already passed.
Every day of delay
involves costs and hardship to individuals
and robs them of their equality of
citizenship.
7.5
Inter-Relationships
PDCN is more than
aware of the synergy and inter-dependence of
the various Standards. We are acutely aware
that poor building design (of bus shelters,
train stations, terminals etc) can make
accessible transport almost useless, and that
if buildings are inaccessible then there is
not much point in having accessible transport
because there is nowhere to go. As a
corollary, if transport is inaccessible then
the value of accessible buildings,
non-discriminatory employment practices or
nondiscriminatory education is significantly
diminished.
While ideally there
needs to be integration of the timetabling of
various Standards, we acknowledge that this
is impractical. For this reason, we believe
that it is time to begin the Standards
implementation process, and to review the
integration-synergy issue after some
experience with the Standards has been
developed.
We believe it is more
important to implement immediately rather
than to delay further while the issue is
being considered. The Standards will never be
perfect but a time line needs to be drawn,
and we believe that the time for
implementation has already passed.
Every day of delay
involves costs and hardship to individuals
and robs them of their equality of
citizenship.
8.1 Review
Mechanisms
PDCN does not
support an early review of the Standards, and
calls for immediate adoption of the Transport
Standard as agreed without amendment. We
reject a review in 2 years time because
patronage will only just be beginning to take
off at that stage, and it would be
methodologically wrong to review the Standard
before people with disabilities are
experiencing the certainty, comfort and value
of the accessible public transport. There can
be no doubt that the lag between introduction
of the Standard and full utilisation of it by
people with disabilities will be greater than
2 years and that there will therefore be
underutilisation in the first two years -
even the first five years.
This is re-enforced by
the fact that the other synergistic parts of
the DDA Standardsmaking process are not yet
in place. Thus, as outlined above, until
buildings are accessible, schools are
accessible, employment practices are
non-discriminatory etc., people with
disabilities will not be utilising the
environment as much as they will once all the
building blocks are in place.
To expect people with
disabilities and people without disabilities
to adjust in two years to a marginally more
accessible total environment after
experiencing and learning to accept
discrimination all their lives is stupid! To
judge one part of a program while the other
essential parts are not in place is
unfair!
As pointed out above,
to even entertain the idea of separating
husband and wife on their trips to the shops,
to the movies, to friends, or to their
vacation is like the old apartheid system in
South Africa where husband and wife were
separated from one another as well as from
people who were “differently
coloured”.
8.2 Other
Issues
PDCN does not
support the need for more frequent reviews
than every five years and does not accept the
logic of the relationship between the
frequency of reviews and technological
change. If indeed rapid technological change
speeds up the rate of implementation, then
there will be no need to review the Standards
more frequently because presumably the market
will be creating access naturally as a result
of the push given by the Standards.
Given that Transport is
the first DDA Standard, there is even less
reason for earlier review because the
Transport Standard will to some extent be
less than fully successful while it is
waiting for the synergy between Transport and
the other DDA Standards to take
effect.
Conclusion
PDCN believes
that the costs of implementing the Draft
Transport Standards are substantially less
than those that have been shown by the
RIS.
PDCN believes the
benefits are significantly underestimated
because the RIS takes a limited sectoral
approach rather than an economic
benefits/willingness to pay approach. We
believe that the value of an accessible
environment would run into billions of dollar
per year if a the people in the community
knew the probability of acquiring a
disability, and were asked to pay a premium
for alleviating some of the environmental
handicaps associated with having a
disability. The RIS made qualitative
statement about the benefits of accessible
transport but made no attempt at a financial
benefits analysis.
PDCN sees no need to
make an exception of school buses since
socialisation on buses is an integral part of
education. Buses can be made accessible on a
needs basis, alternatives to a blanket
proposal for low floor buses can be made
already, and the unjustifiable hardship
clause which is already in the Standard can
be utilised where an individual operator
cannot afford to create access. The PDCN sees
no reason why the Federal Government cannot
fund operators who cannot afford to make a
bus accessible when a need for an accessible
bus arises.
PDCN supports
alteration to the rear axle limit.
PDCN does not accept an
extension of the implementation period for
retro-fitting of trams.
PDCN utterly and
absolutely rejects the notion of having only
one allocated space on buses.
PDCN rejects the need
to review the Standards in two years time
because we know that there will be
significant lags between adoption and
acceptance by people with disabilities of the
Standards, and because while the other
Standards are not in place, the Transport
Standards will not be fully
utilised.
PDCN calls for
immediate adoption of the Transport
Standards. Newly raised issues can be raised
in the review of the RIS in five years time.
Neither the Standards or the timing for
adoption of Standards will ever be perfect.
Every day of delay involves costs and
hardship to individuals and robs them of
their equality of citizenship. We believe it
is time to adopt the Standards.
