Independent report

DPTAC response: review of Railways (Interoperability) Regulations (2011)

Published 14 February 2022

Disability affects some 13 million people in the UK. It includes physical or sensory impairments as well as non-visible disabilities such as autism, dementia, learning disabilities and anxiety.

For many disabled people, a lack of confidence in using the transport system is a barrier to being able to access employment, education and health care, as well as participation in a broader range of social, leisure and commercial activities.

The Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) was established by the Transport Act 1985 and is the government’s statutory advisor on issues relating to transport provision for disabled people.

DPTAC’s vision is that disabled people should have the same access to transport as everybody else, to be able to go where everyone else goes, and to do so easily, confidently and without extra cost.

DPTAC’s response to the review

DPTAC welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011: 2021 review and views this area of the regulatory framework as having important implications for the accessibility of the railway.

In terms of our response, we have opted not to respond to the review’s survey, much of which is targeted at other stakeholders, but rather to provide comments on the efficacy of the overall interoperability framework and associated National Technical Specification Notices (NTSNs) as they relate to accessibility, and to suggest areas for improvement.

In doing so, we seek to provide a detailed and comprehensive response to question 16 of the section within the survey relating to ‘Technical Standards for Organisations’, which is the only question within the survey focused solely on accessibility.

The efficacy of the current Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011 framework and NTSNs

We would judge the overall efficacy of the current Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011 (RIR) framework and associated NTSNs to have been poor from an accessibility perspective.

The most effective element of the current framework has been the Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRM) Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) relating to the heavy rail rolling stock fleet.

This has proved to be a relatively well-defined standard, which, when allied to a legally-binding compliance deadline set by government and detailed monitoring by the Department for Transport (DfT), has been reasonably successful in delivering accessibility improvements in the heavy rail rolling stock fleet, to the extent that 99% of the heavy rail fleet is now compliant, and with full compliance expected by the end of 2021.

However, it should be noted that this approach has been less successful in terms of the Rail Vehicle Accessibility (Non-Interoperable Rail System) Regulations 2010 (RVAR 2010) and the light rail fleet, where, as we understand it, compliance remains below 70%, and full compliance seems unlikely before the latter half of the decade.

The Design Standards for Accessible Railway Stations Code of Practice (DSCoP) has been significantly less effective. This is, of course, partly because the station estate requires significantly more investment to make it accessible, and it would not have been tenable to adopt a similar approach to that used for heavy rail rolling stock within a comparable time period (noting also that the DSCoP only applies to station rebuilds/upgrades and new-builds).

However, even accepting the limitations associated with the DSCoP, it has not proved to be effective at ensuring that station rebuilds/upgrades and new-builds comply with the required design standards.

This seems to be largely a matter of the RIR framework rather than the DSCoP itself, which, whilst in need of improvement, sets out a fairly comprehensive and detailed set of design standards.

The principal issue with the framework seems to be centred around the fact that the Office of Rail Road (ORR) is not sufficiently well-resourced to monitor and enforce compliance with the DSCoP.

As a result, compliance is patchy with anecdotal evidence that in some areas Network Rail and train companies have been working to a parallel set of self-generated standards. The result is a very mixed picture in terms of station accessibility improvements.

We would also highlight an overarching problem in that the whole framework is mired in complexity, making it difficult for disabled people and their representative bodies to hold the rail industry and specific organisations within it to account.

As things stand (and as we understand it), there are currently 3 industry bodies involved in administering the framework: the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) ORR and DfT.

While, in theory, each has a defined role, there is, in our experience, a degree of overlap and some blurring of responsibilities and accountabilities.

Complexity is exacerbated by the existence of 2 standards for rolling stock in the form of the PRM-NTSN and RVAR, and the somewhat convoluted nature of the DSCoP, which is an amalgam of European and domestic standards.

Finally, we should highlight that enforcement powers and penalties do not always seem sufficient or appropriate.

For instance, in terms of the PRM-NTSN, there do not appear to be any penalties available to DfT short of requiring the relevant operator to cease use of the rolling stock concerned for the conveyance of passengers.

Within this framework, it is unsurprising that, faced with the closure of extensive sections of the London Underground, the Secretary of State for Transport decided to grant exemptions to the RVAR for some elements of the London Underground fleet that extended into the mid-2020s.

For standards to be effective there need to be consequences that follow from non-compliance. Such consequences need to involve a range of remedies and penalties that allow enforcement bodies to take appropriate and proportionate steps to ensure compliance and that act as an effective deterrent to wilful or negligent non-compliance. Current measures fall short of this requirement.

Purpose of standards and regulatory frameworks

DPTAC strongly believes that the existence of legally-binding standards is an important contributor to an accessible railway network.

This is particularly important for physical infrastructure – trains and stations – but the approach is potentially capable of extension into other areas such as information and staffing.

In that context, we are supportive of the current standards – PRM-NTSN, RVAR and the DSCoP – but would question the logic of them sitting within a framework designed to deliver an interoperable railway.

The introduction of interoperable standards by the EU was driven by the twin objectives of making cross-border travel easier and creating a more open market for goods and services in the rail sector.

The development of standards for accessibility was a byproduct of this not an objective in its own right. The inclusion of non-EU-derived standards within this framework – the RVAR and elements of the DSCoP – was a sensible, pragmatic arrangement but similarly lacks any inherent logic.

Britain’s departure from the EU provides the opportunity to rethink where the standards for accessibility best fit, particularly in the context of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail and the major restructuring of the rail sector that it proposes.

Against this background, it is worth clearly stating that the purpose of accessibility-focused standards should, primarily, be to improve accessibility (not simply deliver interoperability), and, as such, they sit rather more logically in a framework that contains the other regulatory elements relating to accessibility that apply to the rail sector.

These are primarily: the requirement to have and to implement an Accessible Travel Policy (ATP), the Disabled Persons Railcard, and to offer specific discounted fares for wheelchair-using and sight-impaired passengers.

We are also aware that there may be new regulatory components emerging from the white paper, most importantly the creation of a new Accessibility Duty.

The white paper also clarifies the future roles of industry bodies, making clear that ORR will become the primary regulator of Great British Railways (GBR) (and, by implication, train companies operating under Public Service Contracts awarded by GBR).

Within this structure, we believe that it would make sense to combine current and future elements of accessibility-related regulation into a single integrated regulatory framework for rail accessibility and for this framework (and the codes within it) to be owned, managed and enforced by ORR.

This would be a much simpler, more transparent and more coherent approach than exists currently and should provide a much sharper and more effective focus on accessibility.

We should emphasise that this approach does not obviate the need for interoperability in some areas.

In particular, the need to ensure that future cross-border services remain accessible may mean that Eurostar services, for instance, continue to operate to the EU-mandated PRM-TSI (or some NTSN equivalent for those parts of the services that operate in Great Britain).

The extent to which standards that apply to domestic services (NTSNs) should continue to remain as straightforward duplicates of their EU-equivalents is a more open question, although the current DSCoP may provide a workable model as it incorporates the basic EU standard supplemented by additional GB-specific elements.

How the framework could be improved

Based on the above, we would suggest the following improvements:

1. Remove those elements of the Interoperability framework that relate to accessibility (the PRM-NTSN, RVAR and DSCoP) and integrate them into a new, specific and comprehensive regulatory framework for rail accessibility that also incorporates all other current and planned regulatory components related to accessibility (such as ATPs and the planned Accessibility Duty).

2. Within the proposed new industry structure, make ORR responsible for management and enforcement of the new regulatory framework for accessibility suggested above, ensuring that within the framework, ORR has an appropriate range of penalties and other remedies it can hold and deploy to ensure compliance with the new framework (the issue of derogations and exemptions needs to be considered further but would logically also fit within the suggested compliance regime). ORR also needs to be adequately resourced to undertake this role.

3. From a disabled passenger perspective, ensure that accountability and redress within the new framework are transparent and clear.

4. Include within ORR’s responsibilities ownership and (mandatory) periodic updating (say, every 5 years) of the existing codes relating to physical infrastructure and any future codes.

5. If necessary, develop and utilise a domestic equivalent (NTSN) of the EU PRM-TSI to ensure the continued interoperability of cross-border services, and consider separately the extent to which future versions of the NTSNs remain duplicative of EU equivalents (we accept that there are supply-side and market efficiency issues to be considered here), but noting the possible utilisation of the hybrid EU/domestic model employed by the current DSCoP (albeit it in a less convoluted form than the current CoP).

6. Although outside the scope of this review, we should also note our view that the current standards relating to physical infrastructure (the PRM-NTSN, RVAR and DSCoP) need to be reviewed and updated. Such a review of the DSCoP has already been initiated but a similar review of the PRM-NTSN and RVAR is also required, given that both standards are over a decade old. Development of a single NTSN for rolling stock should be a priority.

7. These changes have the potential to create a significantly improved and more effective regulatory framework for accessibility in the rail sector. When combined with the other initiatives to improve accessibility contained with the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail and industry restructuring more widely they have the potential to affect a truly transformative improvement to the accessibility of Britain’s rail network.

Future engagement

As we have already highlighted, the review of interoperability regulations has important implications from an accessibility perspective and is closely linked to the work we are undertaking with the Rail Transformation team on implementation of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail more generally.

As such, we would be very happy to engage further with the review as it moves towards conclusions.

DPTAC

19 July 2021