SINGAPORE – Wheelchair customers can now familiarise themselves with wheelchair-friendly journey routes below a brand new programme by transport operator SBS Transit.
Beneath the Journey Buddy programme launched on Monday, wheelchair customers can join as much as three free periods on the right way to navigate a journey route with the assistance of a journey buddy.
The journey buddies, who’re SBS Transit workers, will information the passenger all through the journey and share journey ideas with them equivalent to finding the lifts at a practice station or discovering the precise cabin for wheelchair customers.
Journey buddies will meet the passengers at their most well-liked beginning bus cease, bus interchange or practice station, and information her or him by way of the route. Relying on the route, passengers could also be guided by a couple of journey buddy all through the journey.
A sector of the journey should embrace travelling on any SBS Transit bus or practice service, together with the North East Line (NEL), Downtown Line and Sengkang-Punggol LRT service.
One beneficiary of the programme is a wheelchair person who wished to be generally known as Mr H.B. Tan. A spinal wire damage in 2020 left him depending on a wheelchair.
Since then, stated the 57-year-old, “getting onto a bus or a practice out of the blue grew to become so unfamiliar to me, and it’s a problem for me as a result of I’m petrified of boarding a bus or practice with out assist”.
He added: “However with this programme, I get a good suggestion of the right way to get to the respective stations and obtain steerage from journey buddies to, for example, inform me the place the raise is or the precise cabin within the practice the place I can park my wheelchair safely.”
Mr Tan, who’s unemployed, has been familiarising himself along with his common routes, together with commuting from his residence in Jurong to Alexandra Hospital in Queenstown.
The programme additionally makes it simpler for him to change from personal transport to public transport. At the moment, he will get round by driving, however his spouse has to assist him along with his wheelchair.
“After I grow old, I’ll not have the ability to drive any extra, so I wished to take this chance to get used to taking public transport alone,” he stated.
Mr Jeffrey Sim, chief govt of SBS Transit Rail, stated the programme was designed not solely to assist anxious wheelchair passengers allay their fears, but in addition to assist caregivers really feel assured when these passengers take public transport on their very own.
He added that among the journey buddies are folks with disabilities who can empathise with the customers.
There are presently about 30 journey buddies, together with 4 with disabilities.
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