The problem

Opportunities to improve accessibility

People value reliable transport, respectful treatment, well-connected services, and inclusive experiences. Safety is crucial. Giving people choice and control boosts confidence in navigating independently. Addressing accessibility pain points at each stage of a journey and providing comprehensive information empowers confidence and ease of use.

People have told us that good transport means:

it is reliable
people are treated respectfully, regardless of their background
services are well-connected
the experience is inclusive for everyone.

Safety is also seen as essential for a positive travel experience.

Workshop participants expressed their desire for more choice and control over how they travel. This would increase their confidence to get around the network independently and enable more people to travel without relying on support workers or transport staff.

We heard that by making the transport system easier to use for people with disability, everyone in the community would find it easier to use, including older people, parents with young children, people travelling with luggage and people with temporary injuries.

Group of people around an accessible taxi

What we heard

We have heard from people about where the greatest opportunities are to address their accessibility pain points in each of the four stages of a journey – pre-journey planning, journey start and end, interchange, and taking the trip.

We heard unreliable systems and services can have a big impact on people’s confidence to travel, and the success of their travel experiences. This includes unreliable communication, infrastructure, systems and staff skills.
The Strategic Framework should consider the things (i.e. infrastructure, systems, communication) that are unreliable, inconsistent and affect somebody’s confidence in, and the success of, their travel experience.
We heard the levels of empathy of staff and the public influence how successful a journey is.
The Strategic Framework should consider how it can support employees and the wider community to increase their level of understanding and empathy towards people with diverse needs, including people with disability and, break down ableism and other discrimination.
This can be done through staff training, employing people with disability, or sharing stories or running campaigns that show people with disability using the public transport network.
We heard the challenges of connecting across the transport network stop people from travelling. This includes between public transport services like buses and trains and between rural and metropolitan settings.
The Strategic Framework should take a whole of journey approach. This means looking at the experience of the journey from the moment it begins (i.e. leaving the house) right through to when it ends back at home, across multiple modes of transport – and importantly – between the various modes of transport (i.e. via pedestrian access, wheelchair access, taxis).
We heard human-centred and universal design principles are important for accessibility and a positive experience for all transport users.
The Strategic Framework should incorporate human-centred and universal design principles to guide the design of improvements to the network. This means putting the passenger at the centre of the planning and design, and seeing people with disability as the enablers for change that improves experiences for everyone.
Feedback from workshop participants about ways of empowering people using the transport network.

We heard from people with disability that perhaps the most effective tool to empower people to feel confident and valued, and to make the network easy to use, is to provide better information. Passengers need better information at all stages of the journey, from planning travel to arriving at the destination and back home again.

We heard that information needs to be more accessible and helpful for everyone, including people with vision or hearing impairments and those who can't use the latest technology. We must also improve communications about disruptions, service changes, or facility changes within interchanges.
"We might not be able to make the entire network accessible but with information we can make decisions about where our disability is best equipped for."
Workshop participant
We can improve the first and last parts of a trip by working more closely with local councils, especially to enhance footpaths and road crossings. Tripping hazards on footpaths and the lack of footpaths connecting residential areas to bus stops or local shops are a significant issue.
People rely on wheelchair-accessible commercial passenger vehicles (taxis and rideshares) and community transport to get around and to attend appointments, but they can sometimes be hard to come by.
“People simply want to be independent. Having a carer is a luxury for some. We want to know that we can get from door to door independently.”
Workshop participant
Places where people change from driving to using public transport, like train stations or bus stops, and places where people change from public transport modes to walking, cycling and to other public transport modes, are important for an easy journey. These places are known as interchange points. To improve them, we need:
- good shelter and lighting
- clear signs that are easy to see and understand
- clear audio announcements
- better communication about disruptions or changes to services.
We have also heard that more convenient boarding locations are needed, along with ways to make it easier for people to navigate their way along crowded platforms. Visible and supportive staff can play a big role in making transport interchanges more accessible. Removing gaps and height differences between vehicles and boarding points would make interchange points much easier to use for many people.
“The problems come because the road coaches are never on time and don’t remember that people on wheelchairs are at the end of the train. Our chances of making connections are depleted before they start.”
Workshop participant
During a trip, people expect safe and considerate behaviour from staff and drivers, clearer information and communication (particularly when something goes wrong or is not working), seamless connections between services, and respect from other transport users.
“I can’t remember the last journey I took that didn’t have a missing link that I had to overcome; not the service provider but me. Ideal state is me not having to think about what I’ll do.”
Workshop participant

Current transport network

Since the introduction of the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport (DSAPT) in 2002, Victoria has invested heavily in new and upgraded public transport infrastructure and rolling stock. This provides opportunities to improve accessibility by building accessibility into new designs. These investments transform accessibility, but we still face challenges due to aging infrastructure and rolling stock built some time ago to older standards and the high costs of upgrading or replacing it, the size of the network, as well as significant gaps across the transport network.

In some cases slopes and curves make meeting standards very hard. Many tram stops and train stations (especially in regional areas) remain hard to access. Accessibility varies widely across the state, with footpaths also playing a critical role.

Victoria faces significant challenges in making our transport network fully accessible. Key barriers include the age of much of our existing infrastructure (some parts of the network were built 170 years ago) and rolling stock, the size of the network, and the high cost of upgrading or replacing it:

New level access stops are being progressively built, but around 75 per cent of tram stops do not have raised platforms that facilitate level access entry to low floor trams and around 60 per cent of the tram fleet have high-floors.
New and upgraded train stations are also being progressively delivered. Many older train stations exist in metro and regional areas, and some of these have issues that limit independent access. The problems are most significant where the stations are the oldest. Many older trains and carriages that are not fully accessible are still in use.
There are more than 26,000 bus and coach stops in Victoria. Accessibility varies considerably across this network. Some areas, like Melbourne’s middle suburbs in the south and east, where infrastructure is often older, have a higher proportion of inaccessible stops.
Footpaths play a critical role in accessibility, but their responsibility is shared between local councils and DTP.
While accessibility is about all areas in Victoria, regional areas face additional challenges such as fewer and less frequent public transport options, limited wheelchair-accessible taxis, inadequate footpaths and crossings, varying accessibility features on vehicles and at stations, and limited accessible infrastructure like ramps, elevators, and accessible parking spaces.

The Strategic Framework provides a way to look at these challenges across the State and advise on what are the most important things to fix first, based on how people will be impacted.

Updated 2 October 2024

The problem

On this page

Opportunities to improve accessibility

What we heard

Current transport network