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Rail Vehicle Accessibility (London Underground Metropolitan Line S8 Vehicles) Exemption Order 2010

My Lords, this House has always demonstrated a keen interest in the accessibility of rail vehicles, and that is why we are here today. We know that, without public transport that they can use, disabled people are limited in their ability to get to work, visit friends and family, participate in leisure activities or access healthcare and education facilities. The Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 1998—or RVAR—are just one example of the action we have taken to ensure that public transport services are increasingly available to the estimated 11 million disabled people in the United Kingdom. More than a third of the national rail fleet, more than 5,600 vehicles, is already compliant with RVAR, and almost all older rail vehicles have been made more accessible during refurbishment. We have also set an end date of 1 January 2020, by which time all rail vehicles must be accessible. However, it is sometimes not possible for new trains to meet the requirements of RVAR in full and the Rail Vehicle Accessibility (London Underground Metropolitan Line S8 Vehicles) Exemption Order 2010 will allow London Underground to introduce new trains on the Metropolitan line which are fully compliant with RVAR in all but five respects. These can be directly traced to the significant operational and infrastructure challenges that London Underground faces and are similar to those granted by Parliament for London Underground’s new Victoria line trains in 2008. These were the first London Underground trains to be built to modern accessibility standards and we learned a number of lessons during that process which have been applied here to the new Metropolitan line stock to minimise a number of exemptions which are necessary. The first and second exemptions requested relate to audible and visual warnings of door closure. They will allow LU to use an audible and visual door-closure warning which is shorter than that required by RVAR—1.75 seconds as opposed to three seconds. Until all the new trains are delivered, they must run alongside existing vehicles which were designed in the 1960s and consequently fail to meet many aspects of modern accessibility standards. I should share with the Committee the information that I grew up in Metroland and travelled daily to school on those A-stock trains from the first day of their introduction over 50 years ago. As there will be a mixture of new and old vehicles on the Metropolitan line until 2013 and on the other sub-surface lines until May 2015, it would be confusing and potentially hazardous to have two different durations of door-closure warnings on the same route. As it would be difficult and wasteful to change the warnings on existing trains for the one or two years that they remain in service, allowing London Underground to continue with its current warning periods will provide consistency and allow disabled people to be confident about what the warning actually means. London Underground is already committed, as part of the terms of its similar Victoria line exemption, to undertake a trial to establish whether a compliant warning is appropriate for its operations without impacting on the safety of all passengers once all its new trains are introduced in 2013. The results will inform the position on the Metropolitan line and future policy in this area. The third exemption relates to the announcements made on board the train at each station. RVAR requires both the next stop and terminating station to be announced while the train is stationary at a station. This requirement was originally included to enable passengers to distinguish between fast and stopping services. For key sections of the Metropolitan line, where there are branch lines and junctions or where there is a choice between fast and stopping services, we have insisted that compliant announcements be made. However, at certain non-key sections—by that I mean, predominantly, the stretch between Aldgate and Baker Street, where there are no branches or junctions and all trains stop at all stations—the exemption will allow some, but not all, of the mandated information to be given during transit between some stations instead. To insist on the provision of all the mandated information at these stations would greatly limit the amount of other information that can be given to passengers at that time, such as connections to other routes and services. Additionally, some platforms on the line will be shorter than the trains arriving there, and London Underground wishes to use the passenger information system to ensure that customers move towards an opening door in time for them to alight should they wish to. Again, similar exemptions were granted for London Underground’s new Victoria line fleet and it is undertaking a trial to determine what announcements passengers find most useful. These results will inform future policy. The fourth exemption will allow the placement of a horizontal handrail in the designated wheelchair spaces on each train. This recognises the level of crowding which passengers on Metropolitan line services can experience at peak times and addresses concerns about standing customers falling against or on to wheelchair users due to the lack of an appropriate handrail or other support in this area. This is an issue that we have sought to address in revised RVAR regulations, which we expect to introduce later this year. Consultation on a draft of those regulations, completed in 2009, indicates unanimous stakeholder support for this amendment and will render similar exemptions unnecessary in future. The final exemption concerns wheelchair users’ access from the platform to the train. We share London Underground’s view that it is impractical to use manually- deployed boarding ramps on a frequent metro service because of restricted space on platforms, the limited amount of time that each train waits—at peak times, there will be 32 trains an hour at Kings Cross or one less than every two minutes—and the 3.4 million people that the system handles every day. Instead, LU will provide ““platform humps””—raised areas on the platform which are positioned to allow level access to those carriages which have wheelchair spaces. These have already been successfully trialled on the Northern line, and wheelchair users prefer this solution since there is no need to involve staff and it allows independent travel. These time-limited exemptions are linked to London Underground’s step-free access programme which is providing a step-free route from the street to the platform. The order provides exemptions at each station which will expire on the dates given as each station becomes step-free. The number of exemptions will therefore progressively diminish until the work is completed in December 2013, and London Underground has already allocated £5.5 million to complete this work. This is extremely encouraging but, while the new trains have lower floors than those they will replace, and stepping distances will reduce significantly as a result, some platforms will remain non-compliant. At nine stations, provision for step-free access has yet to be established, and the order therefore provides for the exemption to fall at such time as this is provided. For a further 12 stations, an exemption with no time limit has been sought, since the geometry of the platforms currently presents an insurmountable barrier to level access. Perhaps I may explain. Some platforms on the Metropolitan line form the oldest stretch of underground line in the world, dating from the 1860s when attitudes towards customer accessibility were very different. Some platforms are severely curved or of compromised height where the line is shared with other London Underground or National Rail lines. In those circumstances, allowance must be made for the different height, size and shape of trains which use the same track and platforms. There is no known solution to these problems at present. Although London Underground is exploring possibilities, setting an expiry date for these exemptions would be entirely artificial. We and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee believe that this is an appropriate response to the issue and will continue to monitor the situation closely. If a novel solution were developed, the exemptions could be revoked at any time. In summary, we believe that the order represents a sensible approach to these issues. Similar exemptions were granted for similar reasons for the new Victoria line trains which are currently being introduced into service, and will allow London Underground to resolve some of the challenges which compliance with RVAR represents in the short term to a metro service with high frequencies, inaccessible stations and a mix of old and new vehicles. The order will enable London Underground to replace a fleet of vehicles first introduced in the 1960s with new trains that are significantly more accessible in all respects and will provide significant accessibility improvements in a co-ordinated way for the benefit of all passengers. The order’s provisions are supported by the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, the Office of Rail Regulation and London TravelWatch, which is the official organisation representing the interests of transport users in London. I commend the order to the Committee look forward to hearing the views of noble Lords.