ࡱ> WYV7 WbjbjUU -f7|7|Rl 8  $2H H L ')))))) ") )  >   ' '  z  < ,[  T0:b# b#  Submission to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) Regarding Equal access to wheelchair accessible taxi (WAT) services Submitted by: Rachel Kay 32 Bluehills Avenue Glen Waverley, Vic e-mail: rachel_kay@bigpond.com General background - personal My name is Rachel Kay and I have Cerebral Palsy, Spastic Diplegia. I have had this condition from birth and rely on the use of an electric wheelchair for mobility. I currently am a university student studying at Deakin University in Melbourne. I rely on wheelchair accessible taxis (WATs) as my primary method of transport both to and from the university, as well as for social and personal requirements. Other than for short trips from home (such as to the local shops) and where train access is possible (both geographically and climatically), WATs are the only realistic method of travel I have. I live in a shared accommodation with two other disabled women and have lived away from home since I was 18. I am now 23 years of age. I value my independence highly and have lived independently for the last 5 years. I manage my own affairs, education, and life in general. I believe that disabled people have as much right to access to suitable public transport as do those who can travel with conventional transport (buses, trains, trams, normal taxis, etc). I own a manual wheelchair but can only use it in a limited way. Such a medium of transport significantly disadvantages me as I need to rely on others to push my chair, take me to the toilet, and lift me in and out of a taxi. I use my manual chair as an emergency means of mobility. Under no circumstances would I consider it a suitable mode of mobility for general use. General comment getting around in a wheelchair Without a doubt, the majority of people who rely on electric wheelchairs for mobility are significantly disadvantaged with respect to access to public transport. Unless you want to travel everywhere under your own locomotion, you are forced to use public transport or taxis. Driving your own car is as good as impossible for most electric (and many manual) wheelchair-bound people. The very disability that puts us in these wheelchairs prohibits us from the necessary mobility to operate our own vehicle other than the wheelchair. Trams (in Melbourne) are physically inaccessible to people in electric wheelchairs. So are buses. There is no way you can independently get an electric wheelchair into these vehicles. They do not provide ramps or lifts, and if you somehow managed to get the chair in (and out) of the tram/bus there is nowhere to locate it. Trains in Melbourne do provide limited support for electric wheelchair users providing you can (a) get to and from the railway stations at each end of your journey, and (b) there is a railway station close enough to where you want to go. Inclement weather makes the journey to and from the station both dangerous and unpleasant. The limited amount of daylight in winter months can make the return journey home from the station unsafe and unsettling. It is obviously not recognised by the powers that be that design bus shelters that a wheelchair cannot shelter under one as the seat gets in the way. So, if we are going to preserve our independence, this leaves us taxis as the only real means of transport available to us. Fact: Electric wheelchairs cannot fit in a conventional taxi. Some conventional taxis will not even cater for manual wheelchairs due to their carrying large gas cylinders in their boot. Some taxi drivers of conventional taxis carry personal belongings in the boot and can be averse to moving them in order to fit in a manual wheelchair. Many taxi drivers do not understand how to disassemble and reassemble a manual wheelchair and, I suspect, resent the time it takes them to do so ethical drivers, will not include this time on the meter and so this work is done by their good graces. This leaves Wheelchair Accessible Taxis (WATs), and more specifically Multi Purpose Taxis (MPTs) as the only way to get around independently to, within reason, any desired destination, for those in an electric wheelchair. Multi Purpose Taxis the problems The lack of effective competition in the MPT marketplace, the fact that it is not effectively regulated or policed, and the fact that the MPT customers have no other effective or reasonable choice of public transport leaves us vulnerable to the whims of the MPT system. Guarantee of service is a key issue here. People in wheelchairs, especially electric wheelchairs, have no alternatives to MPTs. We are at the whim and mercy of the MPT system and in general there is very little evidence of either whim or mercy. Cost of the service is another key issue. Taxis are expensive. Many, if not most, wheelchair users are pensioners. With my pension I have to pay my rent, food, clothes, books and some maintenance on my chair. There is little left over and finding taxi money from that generally means that I do without and stay home. I would like to address the key issues: There are insufficient Multi Purpose Taxis (MPT) to meet our requirements. Of the 4,180 taxis in Melbourne, there are only 170 WATs or MPTs. In other words only 4% of Melbourne taxis cater for wheelchairs, whilst 13% of the population has a disability (figures taken from ABS statistics). These numbers are even more inadequate when put into context. Electric wheelchair-bound people have virtually no alternative means of transport. Therefore (unless we are one of the fortunate few who live near a train station and have a destination near a train station) we must catch taxis to and from our place of education or business. We can end up using taxis many times each day. In contrast, most able-bodied people will rarely use a taxi many times a day and are therefore not as dependant ion them as we are. The small number of MPTs means that there is no real competition in this industry and without competition the customers needs are ignored and the cost of public transport is kept high. Taxis are an expensive mode of transport especially considering the high use by wheelchair bound people. While the able bodied community can access other forms of transport, or can drive their own car, we are forced to rely on taxis which are an expensive mode of everyday transport. There should be more MPTs and they should be cheaper for the wheelchair customers, especially since most of us do not have any of the alternatives that are open to the non-wheelchair customers. Taxis cost me between $40 and $60 per week just to go to and from university even allowing for the 50% subsidy my taxi card provides. Social outings are obviously an additional expense on top of this. I am subsidised for my fares to and from university but the fares still need to be paid by someone. As a further example, if I were to travel from my home to and from the Melbourne CBD by taxi it would cost me $10 to $15 each way a total of about $30 for the round trip. A person who can use other forms of public transport would pay $5 full fare for the same trip by train, tram, or bus. There are no safeguards to ensure that we are not discriminated against by the MPT system. Many of the issues I present in this submission are really acts of discrimination. MPT drivers can, and do, ignore requests by a wheelchair-bound person. My father has seen MPTs at the airport waiting in line and they have also been seen accepting non-wheelchair fares. While those drivers are sitting at the airport they do not accept fares for wheelchair-bound customers elsewhere in the community. There is no assurance that our requests for MPTs are not ignored or treated as a low priority by MPT drivers although our bookings may be taken with consideration by some taxi companies, they have no control over how they are handled by the MPT drivers. Whilst there are no specific statistics or hard evidence available, the commonly held suspicion is that MPT drivers place a low priority on requests from a wheelchair customer if there is a possibility of getting a normal fare instead. Often MPTs are seen at taxi ranks and large Melbourne hotels sometimes 2 or 3 together. My father told me that on his way home from work on Wednesday night he observed 3 MPTs together in the city. Given the number of times I have been unable to secure a taxi, it is difficult to accept that these MPTs have no wheelchair bookings requested of them. The lure of fares that do not require the time overhead of loading and unloading a wheelchair must be a significant factor in some drivers decisions when the dispatchers request a wheelchair booking. We are not able to make permanent bookings for an MPT. I can make a private arrangement with an MPT driver for a regular trip (say to and from university 5 days per week), but I cannot do so through the standard booking system. A permanent private booking is only good while the driver is not on holidays, sick or takes a different type of job. I have often been stranded when I have been unable to get bookings to cover a previously arranged booking. This is blatant discrimination because if I were able to walk, I know that I could call up any taxi service and make a permanent booking for whatever time(s) I want and that contract would be honoured. Many MPT drivers work mainly from 8am till 6pm few of them work outside those hours or on weekends. This makes it very difficult to get around outside those hours, even through taxi drivers who will normally take a private booking from me. The booking service for MPTs is very slow to respond. When my father books a normal taxi the phone is typically answered within 2 to 3 rings and the taxi booked generally within a 5 minute period. When I call the booking service for an MPT it can take a long time to complete the booking. I have been put on hold for periods of 20 minutes. This becomes very expensive when I am away from home and using my mobile phone to make the booking my mobile phone is my main method of communication when I am not at home. There is no guarantee of service and no assurance that we can get an MPT in an acceptable timeframe. My father used to travel by taxis many times each week and he could book a taxi and have one on his doorstep within 5 minutes of when he wanted it. He can walk out the door of his office and flag down a taxi. At worst I have heard him complain that he had to wait 30 minutes for a taxi for me that would be a luxury! I can get no guarantee that an MPT will honour the time I have requested, if in fact they will guarantee to fill the request at all. In a later section of this submission I cite some specific instances of this. I can also get no guarantee that an MPT will respond to my call. In one specific instance, my wheelchair had been hit by a car (on a dark raining night coming home from the station!) and I was taken to hospital. I was discharged at 11pm that night and needed to get a taxi so that I could get me, and my chair, home. The taxi dispatcher advised that there was only one MPT on the road and it took over 30 minutes before they would even respond to the dispatchers call, let alone accept the booking it was only through the dispatchers urging of the driver that he agreed to take the booking. At one point I was faced with the possibility of sleeping in the hospital waiting room until I could get an MPT to take me home. As it was, it still took over 1 hours after I was discharged before the taxi arrived to take me home. This is unacceptable. I am also finding that my university studies are suffering because taxis are either late causing me to be extremely late for lectures, or they cannot be guaranteed, which means I have to miss university on those days. This seriously disadvantages me and directly prevents me from achieving my best results due to time lost. Some MPT drivers have no respect for us I sometimes get the feeling that they think I am an idiot because I cannot walk. I have had instances where a driver will push my chair around without asking (like having a taxi driver push you into a car) and use the joystick of my chair control without asking (no conventional taxi driver would move their customers legs for them!). Drivers, who are new to MPTs, and new to dealing with disabled people, are obviously untrained and I have sometimes had to suffer the indignity of being treated like something they would rather not handle rather than like a human being. MPTs often have little consideration for the fact that I have to wait at the pick up point in my chair for them to arrive irrespective of the weather or the time it takes them. Despite frequent requests, they will not call me on my mobile as they are approaching the university. Because their arrival time is unreliable and often a long time after the agreed time (sometimes 2 or more hours!), I am forced to wait at the pick up point in often cold, wet and possibly unsafe conditions especially at night when there may be no other people around. As a girl in a wheelchair I feel extremely insecure if I must wait outside at night. If there were any consideration given by the drivers, I could, especially on wet days, wait under shelter and in a warm environment. It would not take me long to meet the taxi once I knew it was almost at the pickup point. MPT bookings have at times resulted in either the wrong type of taxi turning up, or the taxi does not come equipped with straps to tie down my chair. On more than one occasion I have booked an MPT, but when the taxi has finally arrived it has been a conventional taxi or one that cannot fit an electric wheelchair. This is despite the fact that I have clearly stated that I am in an electric wheelchair when making the booking. MPTs arriving but not equipped to carry my wheelchair. There have been times when an MPT has turned up without the straps needed to secure my chair. These taxis have not been at the start of their shift, so it is quite obvious that up till then they have not been transporting wheelchair-bound people. There have also been times when the driver of the MPT had obviously never transported a wheelchair before as he had no idea how to use the straps to tie down my chair despite the fact that he claimed to be the regular driver of the taxi. Who has he been transporting in the MPT if not wheelchairs? Wheelchair users of MPTs are at the mercy and honesty of the driver. When you sit in the back of an MPT it is difficult, if not impossible, to know when the driver turns their meter on and off. We are also reliant on the drivers honesty and ethics that they will fill in the taxi voucher with the correct value from the meter. This is not a situation that people travelling in conventional taxis are obliged to endure. In fact, I know that my father would refuse to pay a taxi fare if he could not see the meter at the start and end of the journey. There is a definite cost overhead to the MPT driver that should not be included as part of the fare. The MPT driver has to load and unload my wheelchair and me. This is a disincentive to the MPT driver as it takes time and generally the ethical driver will not have the meter running while this takes place. I suspect that this can lead to animosity and contribute to a general unwillingness of MPT drivers to favour wheelchair customers over those that have simply luggage. I am not suggesting that this time should be added to my fare (at least not the part I am required to pay). On the contrary, as I have pointed out in one of my previous points, the cost of taxi travel is too high now. Recommendations There are a number of obvious recommendations that come from the points I have made in my submission. These are: Either increase the number of MPTs on the road, or restructure the taxi fleet to make more taxis able to transport an electric wheelchair. I have noticed that the increase in the number of MPT licenses issued has not improved the availability of MPTs to wheelchair-bound people. A better solution would be to provide a fleet of dedicated MPTs that are licensed to only transport wheelchairs. Use of MPTs should be supported by an aggressive regulation and policing of MPT use to ensure that they are not being used for other purposes. Disincentives (such as fines) should be introduced for drivers who refuse to transport wheelchair-bound people. Fines should be applied to drivers who do not turn up on time. Such a fine should be linked to the length of time we are required to wait for them. Compensation should be given to wheelchair people who have to wait more than say 10 minutes for a pre-booked taxi. Fines should be levied against the booking service if we are required to wait on the line for more than say 5 minutes. The booking service should have the authority to fine MPT drivers for not responding to calls for a booking. Fines should be levied against the taxi service if they do not meet the Victorian Taxi Directorates published service levels, such as not having to wait more than 20 minutes for an ASAP booking. The wheelchair person should also receive compensation in this situation. Compensation should be provided to the wheelchair person if they have to wait on the phone line for more than 5 minutes before their call is answered and dealt with by the booking service. Specific instances Here are some actual examples of problems I have had over the last few months. Please be aware that these are just a few of the instances over the last couple of months they are by no means the only ones I have been forced to experience: On Tuesday 10th April 2001 I could not go to university because I could be guaranteed of getting a taxi to get me both there and back from home. If I had got a taxi to university, they would not guarantee to be able to provide a taxi to subsequently get me home. This was despite being pre booked at the very latest on Monday the 9th of April through the Central Booking service. As mentioned earlier, a taxi is my ONLY means of transport to and from University. If a taxi cannot be arranged to get me home, I have no other means of getting home and so I must miss out on my lectures and necessary interaction with lecturers and other students. On Wednesday 11th April 2001 I again could not go to university for a similar reason to the one described previously. This time, while the taxi company had said they might be able to provide me with a taxi home, they could not provide me with transport there! This trip was also pre booked at the very latest on Monday the 9th April through the Central Booking service. On Tuesday 8th May 2001 I had a taxi pre-booked for a 10:15am pick-up to take me to university for an 11am lecture. The taxi did not arrive until 11:05am by the time I got to university at around 11:45am I had missed most of the lecture. This taxi was pre booked at the very latest by 5:00pm on Monday the 7th through Silver Top taxis. On Wednesday 9th May 2001 I had a taxi booked for 10:15am. I had a lecture at 12:00 noon and had important things to do before the lecture. I did not get picked up until 11:40am (arriving at around 12:00 noon at university), which meant that I was late for my lecture and unable to perform my tasks before the start of the lecture. This was pre booked at the very latest by 5:00pm on Monday the 7th again through Silver Top taxis. On Sunday 13th of May 2001 I had arranged to go to Mum and Dads for lunch and tried to book a taxi for 10am but could not get a booking until 11:45am. Despite this, the taxi did not turn up until 12:00pm. When I later tried, around 1:00 pm, (on an ASAP booking) to get a taxi to go down to Chadstone with my sister to see a 2pm movie it did not turn up until 3:45pm (2 hours after it was requested). Because I was not sure I could get a taxi later that night to come home, I ended up not going to Chadstone to the movies and had to go home instead. This was booked through Black Cabs. On Monday 18th June I booked a taxi at about 2:00pm to return home from university after my exams. The taxi did not arrive to pick me up until 4:00pm. The taxi company was Silver Top. Some time before the 10th of April 2001 I had a taxi booked to go home from university at about 5:00pm. I finished university earlier and at about 4:30pm I rang to find out if the booking had been covered. I was told that it was not covered so I asked if they could try and get me one earlier as I had finished and was ready to go. It was a very wet and cold day I so had to sit inside and wait. I did not get picked up until about 6:30pm, so I did not arrive home until about 6:45. This was a wait of 2 hours from the time the taxi was requested. At other times, after going to the movies, I have been left waiting at Chadstone shopping centre for up to 2 hours at a time for a taxi to arrive. One night after attending a function at Glenalen school, I was forced to wait for over 1 hours at night until the taxi arrived. This taxi had been booked for 9.30pm but did not arrive until 11pm. Fortunately someone was kind enough to wait with me. At no time did I receive a call to advise me that the taxi would be late. 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