5.8 Accessible Environments

Talking compass

The C2 Talking Compass from Robotron Group(Australia) is a hand-held compass that uses digitised speech to state the direction in which the compass is pointing. It is button-activated and can give the eight major compass points (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW) in two languages selected from most of the major languages of the world. More details of compasses can be found in Chapter 18, Section 18.4.4.6.3.

Embedded systems in the environment

Quite a different approach is to use a system of signal beacons embedded in the environment. There are two architectures possible, one where the traveller uses a hand-held receiver to interrogate the beacon and a second, where the beacon itself delivers an audio message when activated by a traveller. The two approaches are compatible and a combination of embedded beacons plus a hand-held receiving device could considerably enhance the available information and journey experience for visually impaired and blind travellers. In addition, embedded orientation devices, particularly in urban areas, could be considered part of the design of accessible environments. There is increasing awareness of the importance of accessible environments and some progress has been made, though considerable further work will be required. An overview of developments in environmental accessibility can be found in Section 5.8 and more details are given in Chapters 10 and 11.

5.8 Accessible Environments

The earliest legislation on accessibility for blind people may be that found in the Bible (Lev. ch 19, ver 14) prohibiting leaving ‘stumbling blocks’ which could trip up blind people. Although in many ways considerable progress has been made since then, potholes and badly maintained road surfaces can still pose serious problems to sighted as well as blind and visually impaired people.

The previous sections of this chapter have reviewed the assistive technology systems that can be used to overcome some of the barriers presented by inaccessible environments. The development of the social model of disability and increasing activism by organisations of disabled people has lead to increasing, though still patchy awareness of the importance of full civil rights and social inclusion for disabled people. Many countries have legislation prohibiting discrimination based on disability, though much of this legislation is also criticised by groups of disabled people and implementation is variable. Being able to access environmental facilities and services is an important aspect of social inclusion.

Many countries now have legislation prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of disability. This generally includes legislation on the accessibility of the facilities, services and physical environments of cities, towns and villages, as well as the associated public infrastructure. In some cases, accessibility requirements have also been added to building regulations. Examples include the Accessibility Guidelines

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generated by the U.S. Access Board in response to the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) and the Architectural Barriers Act (1968). Within these guidelines are regulations to require buildings, including offices, courtrooms, prison cells and sports centres, to be made accessible to visually impaired and blind people. Key aspects are building layout, lighting, stairs, lifts, escalators, doors, doorways, and signage. Improvements in these areas are likely to have benefits for everyone, whether blind, visually impaired or sighted.

As indicated at the start of this section, an important aspect of accessibility is ensuring that the urban environment, including pavements, roads and buildings, is in good repair, so that there are no unintended hazards. This is clearly of benefit to everyone, regardless of whether they are blind or sighted. Other aspects of accessibility from which everyone can benefit include the improved positioning of street furniture, such as lamp posts, traffic lights, benches and waste bins, to reduce the likelihood of collisions. Many countries, which experience cold weather, with the possibility of ice and snow in winter, spread grit on the roads and use snowploughs to keep the roads clear, butt end to ignore the pavements. Pavements covered with ice and snow are a danger to all pedestrians and to blind and elderly pedestrians in particular. However, there seems to be limited awareness that keeping pavements clear should be considered part of accessibility.

Good street lighting at night is an important part of accessibility, particularly as many visually impaired people who are reasonably confident during the day may feel reluctant to go out without a guide at night. The development of appropriate lighting systems will require the involvement of end-users and taking into account the differing needs of different groups of people. Lighting should probably be diffuse rather than concentrated to avoid causing problems and potential inaccessibility to people who are light-sensitive.

Another important aspect of accessibility is urban design. Unfortunately, there has been a tendency to site facilities, such as shopping centres out of town, often on routes that are often poorly served by public transport. This has been rightly criticised on environmental grounds, but also has important implications for accessibility. Compact urban design with facilities located close to centres of population and a consequent reduction in the need for travel to access facilities and services will benefit disabled people as well as the environment. One advantage is the reduction in the distances to be travelled and the enhanced accessibility for those travelling on foot or by public transport. A further very important benefit is the reduced need to learn different and possibly very complex routes. It is much easier to gain familiarity with one relatively compact area and this is likely to increase the confidence of blind and visually impaired people in going out on their own. In addition, more compact urban design may lead to a resurgence of communities. This is also likely to be of benefit to blind and other disabled people in reducing isolation and increasing the likelihood of finding people they know in the event of getting lost or needing assistance.

Many urban environments have very poor signage. Street names are often missing, defaced or blocked. They tend to have similar locations within a given town, but locations vary in different towns. Signs on and within public buildings are often very small, ambiguous or absent. The use of clearer, larger street signs and

signs on and within public buildings would improve accessibility for many visual impaired people, as well as having benefits for sighted people.

While the focus of this book is blind and visually impaired people, environmental accessibility is for everyone. In some cases, developments that benefit blind and visually impaired people are of benefit to the whole population. In other cases, potential conflicts between the needs of different groups of people should be resolved. For instance, the increasing use of audible indicators of train doors being open and time to cross at pedestrian crossings is a welcome development to many blind and visually impaired people. However, it can cause problems for people who are noise sensitive. A solution, which would be of also be of benefit to deafblind people, would be for environmental objects, such as train doors, lifts and pedestrian crossings, to be fitted with an infrared transmitter. Appropriate standardisation would ensure that blind and visually impaired people would require only one receiver to receive all the different output signals. The user would then have a choice of vibro-tactile or auditory output through a single headphone (so as not to obscure other environmental sounds). An increase in frequency of the vibration or auditory sounds could be used to indicate that the ‘on’ or ‘open’ or ‘go’ phase was about to end. Tuning of the transmitting light emitting diodes generating the infrared signal could be used to give a short range. This would ensure that users only received a signal from the appropriate door or crossing.

The above suggestions include some of the many ways in which urban and other environments can be made more accessible to blind and visually impaired people through improved design and without the need for assistive technology. However, assistive technology also has an important role in making the physical environment accessible and should be seen as complementing other approaches, of the type discussed here.

Assistive systems to increase environmental accessibility for blind and visual impaired people can be divided into the following two main categories, that are discussed in more detail in Chapters 10 and 11:

1.Assistive systems within the physical environment

2.Embedded navigation and information assistive systems

Assistive systems within the physical environment

In considering accessibility of the urban environment, it is useful to consider the accessibility of different aspects of the environment separately. This section will consider the following:

•Streets.

•Buildings, including their entrances, exits and interior layout.

Accessibility for blind and visually impaired people to the street environment can be improved by the use of tactilely marked surfaces. For instance, strips of tactile tiles can be used to indicate pedestrian crossings. In Japan in particular, a continuous strip of tactile tiles is being used to indicate a safe route along a pavement. The use of audible and tactile indicators at pedestrian crossings is

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important for visually impaired and blind pedestrians. Some aspects of building accessibility have already been discussed. There is also a role for navigational cues within large buildings to indicate main corridors, departments or sections and important rooms.

Embedded navigation and information assistive systems

Long-range navigation is as important as obstacle avoidance and can be even more complex. However, it is only relatively recently that there has been some success in the development of orientation systems, whether portable or embedded. One approach is to embed a set of navigational beacons in the environment that can be activated to provide:

•Local cues for doorways, crossings and transport entry and exit points, such as bus stops and metro stations.

•Long-range information about directions to locations such as banks, shops, public buildings and information about public transport at that location.

Whenever feasible, the user interface would be provided through a hand-held device with both tactile output and audio output through one earphone. Standardisation would allow one device to receive information from all the different navigational beacons. Multiple channels could allow users to switch between local and long-range information or between local cues and traffic crossing or lift opening alerts.

An example of this type of beacon is given by talking signs, which provides a repeating, directionally selective voice message, which originates at the sign and is transmitted by infrared light to a hand-held receiver some distance away. The directional selectivity is a characteristic of the infrared message beam where the intensity and clarity of the message increases as the receiver points at the sign more accurately. The receiver is light and small, the sign is easy to install, consumes little power, and is easy to program with human voice or synthesised voice messages. Talking signs uses light-emitting diodes to transmit digitally encoded human speech messages that are intercepted and then relayed through a speaker in the hand-held receiver. The hand-held receiver contains a photo-detector at its front end so that the message is detected when the receiver is pointed in the direction of the sign transmitter. The transmitter and LED arrays can be tuned to control the maximum distance of reception of the message and the direction(s) of transmission. Only users with a receiver can access the stored message and the system is illustrated in Figure 5.19.

There are other approaches to embedded information systems, for instance based on Bluetooth. A case study of the use of Bluetooth to increase the accessibility of public transport is described in Chapter 11.

These embedded navigation and information systems are systems that are distributed throughout a physical environment. However, a Talking Tactile Map (Landau 1999) can be used to give more localised information. The user touches the tactile map and obtains audio information about the location at the point of contact. Route information can be provided for both outdoor and indoor environ-