Is DDA killing the bus industry?

This may be my most controversial bus-related piece yet but I firmly believe the Disability Discrimination Act, for all its good intentions, is actually doing a great deal of damage to the bus industry and discriminating against the able-bodied majority of passengers for the sake of a handful of disabled users. DDA has gone too far and rather than promoting fair and justified equality, in some cases is actually now giving the disabled greater rights than the able-bodied and forcing the latter to accept unfair compromises to avoid being labelled discriminatory. To me, the government's attitude of trying to create an all-inclusive service to accommodate everyone is fundamentally wrong and ultimately benefits no one as each group's needs are so different, and bus users would be far better served by separating the disabled and able-bodied and allowing attention to be focused on each group's specific needs individually. 

Is this better than a step-entrance coach? I honestly don't think so.

The imposition of compulsory DDA compliance for minibuses this year has already rendered huge numbers of perfectly serviceable buses useless for stage carriage work simply because they have entrance steps that had never been a problem before, and other types will go the same way as the new regulations are rolled out over the next few years. With operating costs constantly increasing, many smaller operators simply can't afford to replace their existing fleets with DDA-compliant vehicles, there being no financial help offered by those who impose the rules, and are giving up their services instead. In many cases, particularly in rural areas, no replacement operator can be found so this is leading to the frankly ludicrous situation where no service at all is preferable in the eyes of the powers-that-be to one operated by non-compliant vehicles, which hardly fits with the Act's aim of encouraging greater use of public transport.  

Modern bus design is quite honestly badly compromised by DDA requirements that are inconveniencing thirty or forty able-bodied passengers for the sake of the occasional disabled traveller. Not so long ago, you would have to negotiate a few steps on boarding but the rest of the bus would have a largely flat floor with comfortable forward-facing seats and a good view from the windows. Nowadays, the entrance of a low-floor bus may be step-free but there are plenty of steps or ramps elsewhere as the floor level rises towards the rear. The few seats in the low-floor section are so low down you can't see properly out of the windows and those right at the back above the engine are so high up headroom is limited, many seats face the side or rear, and visibility is further restricted by the forest of brightly-coloured handrails also required by DDA. How can that be considered an improvement over what went before?

The days of coaches like this on stage services will soon be gone for good. Is that really a good thing?

Low-floor buses are now even used on some long-distance interurban services that were once operated by proper coaches and seem very poorly-suited to such work. Despite the operators' best efforts, the introduction of gimmicks such as leather seats and free wifi does little to compensate for the less pleasant travelling experience resulting from the fundamentally poor interior design and increased noise, as the small engine designed for slow stop-start urban duties is worked hard to keep up with main road traffic. DDA will also require compliant vehicles to be used on rural services, where poor road conditions may not be at all suitable for low-floor buses. The alternative would be a step-entrance vehicle with a wheelchair lift, but this adds a great deal of cost and complexity for something that may very rarely be used. Accessibility on country services seems rather pointless anyway as the sparseness of public transport provision in these areas (some villages get one bus per week) means any disabled residents would probably need to run a car or use taxis anyway and wouldn't even travel by bus. 

Front engine, front wheel drive and a nice flat floor. There's got to be some merit in that idea.

The main problem with most modern buses is the rear engine: putting the engine in the passenger compartment is to me a fatal flaw that precludes any effective layout as the floor level always has to rise over the engine. Surely the obvious solution would be to put the engine at the front under a bonnet ahead of the driver and entrance and drive the front wheels, thus leaving a passenger compartment unencumbered by mechanical parts, and maybe use six smaller wheels instead of four large ones to reduce wheelarch intrusion. Such vehicles do exist and have achieved some success in the welfare market but rarely seem to stand up to the rigours of stage carriage work, yet instead of developing this idea the manufacturers stick to the traditional rear-engined layout with all the compromises that entails.  

Wheelchair bays take up a great deal of space that could be better utilised with conventional seating so only one such bay is required by the legislation. That's fine while a single wheelchair user is travelling but what happens when two or more want to travel on the same journey? Both are equal in the eyes of the law so neither has priority over the other, there seems to be no official guidance on how to handle these situations, and some drivers have even reported having to break up fights between wheelchair users waiting for the same bus over who would get to travel! For this reason, some operators require wheelchair users to pre-book their travel on specific journeys, which actually gives them much less freedom than using dedicated transport.

I wonder how often that wheelchair lift has been used. Certainly not on this occasion as it was working a school service.

So what's the solution? While integration and the elimination of discrimination in general is a noble ideal, when it comes to public transport the requirements of able-bodied and disabled travellers just aren't compatible with each other, and in this case I believe separation would actually benefit both parties far more as neither is inconvenienced by compromises made for the sake of the other. Instead of trying to encourage the disabled to make more use of conventional bus services that really aren't (and probably never will be) ideal for their needs, more effort should be put into developing specialised dial-a-ride and welfare bus services that are better able to meet the specific requirements of disabled travellers and hence give them a higher quality of service. On the other side of the coin, with the disabled now suitably catered for, the able-bodied can enjoy a more pleasant experience on buses that suit them and don't need to accommodate all of the above compromises, so both groups would be better served by this arrangement.