Appendix 1: User Experiences of Chennai Metro Accessibility - 3 July 2015

Appendix 1 : User Experiences of Chennai Metro Accessibility 3 July 2015

Appendix 1 : User Experiences of Chennai Metro Accessibility 3 July 2015

Contents
EXPERIENCE SPEAKS: DRA-NTT Data Team access trip (3/7/2015) ......................................... 3
1.

Ummul Khair .............................................................................................................. 3

2.

Shankar Subbiah ......................................................................................................... 3

PHYSICAL ACCESS .......................................................................................................... 3
INFORMATION ACCESS .................................................................................................. 4

3.

V.S. Sunder ................................................................................................................. 5

Eternal Optimism: The CMRL flashback ......................................................................... 5
Refusal to accept REALITY: Railing against the current state ................................. 7

4.

Smitha Sadasivan ........................................................................................................ 8

a)

TOILET: ................................................................................................................ 8

b)

LIFT:..................................................................................................................... 8

c) EMERGENCY AID: .................................................................................................... 8

5.

d)

DISPLAY MESSAGES: ............................................................................................ 8

e)

SIGN LANGUAGE:................................................................................................. 8

f)

ENTRY TO TRAIN: .................................................................................................... 8

g)

TICKET COUNTERS, TOKENS, TICKET VENDING MACHINE, TOKEN GATE WAYS .... 9

Rajiv Rajan .................................................................................................................. 9

In the beginning, giddy with great expectations...

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EXPERIENCE SPEAKS: DRA-NTT Data Team access trip (3/7/2015)

1. UMMUL KHAIR
I am Ummul Khair - a person with cerebral palsy, a wheelchair user, a legal activist, member
of Disability Rights Alliance and part of Disability Legislative Unit (South).
I was very happy that in our city Metro rail started, so that I could finally travel
independently. Sadly, due to the following inaccessible features of Chennai Metro, I cannot
travel independently without assistant.
a) Automatic ticket gates are too high- not reachable and I cannot see where to place
the token
b) Elevators according to the signage are to be used for disabled, elderly and sick
persons- yet the elevators are not disabled-friendly, I could not reach the emergency
intercom as it was too high.
c) I could not use the concourse emergency phone for the same reason
d) Similarly, the privacy lock in the toilet is too high for any wheelchair user
e) Signage says In case of emergency use stair case. How can disabled people like me
use the stair case - is there any alternative?

2. SHANKAR SUBBIAH
PHYSICAL ACCESS
1. Entry Access
1.1. The floor is too slippery and glossy for elderly people as well as crutch users and
others who may have stability difficulties. Tactile paths are incomplete in station
platforms like Koyambedu.
1.2. Token check points not accessible for wheel chair users. Have to be in sight and
height accessible for at least the path designated for them.
2. Toilet
2.1. The main toilet door is too heavy to push / pull for a person with Cerebral Palsy
or for a calliper / crutch user.
2.2. Once inside the toilet of Alandur station, the toilet door entrance is too narrow
for wheelchair, not even a medium adult wheel chair could enter, forget about
power wheelchairs! The width of the entrance was o.k. at Koyambedu however.
Does CMRL go by design standards or accommodate if space is available
2.3. The door is not sliding and also has a door closure arrangement that is tough to
open for people with locomotor impairments. The latch to close is on top not
reachable for wheelchair / crutch / calliper or somebody with a height of or below 4
ft. The latch is also not of the recommended standard.
2.5. No grip rails at Alandur station. And those structured are suitable for wheelchair
users or crutch users - both for wash basin and closet. The hand shower and flush
button are not easily accessible.
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3. The guard walls in platforms are provisioned at a height to have an aerial view of the
city. A wheelchair user cannot do so because of the height of the cemented structure
blocking his eyesight and denying the same joy as like others.
4. There is no guard rail on platforms at entry points where coach door opens. This may
in rush hours may cause others to push children or persons with disabilities bang on the
train
5. The gap between the platform and the coach by height and width is more. This may
cause the wheel struck for wheelchair users, or the cane getting stuck for visually
challenged.
6. Inside the coach, no provisions for wheel chair users to hold on or a positioning
place reserved for them.
7. The seats at least in the end portion of the longer seats should have handles for
somebody with low stability like elderly persons to position, switch over and for grip
while travelling
8. No water facility available in platforms for emergency conditions or for children or
for elderly persons with heart, dehydration risks in city hot like Chennai. Not sure
whether it is available even at lower levels of the station.
INFORMATION ACCESS
1. The station route displaying all to-and-fro stations is not in accessible colour
contrasts.
2. Toilet
2.1. For visually challenged, the tactile pathway leads to half way. Toilet is not
accessible through tactile pathway
2.2. Once inside the toilet, a person with low vision cannot read the signage for
Accessible Toilet. Colour on the signage board is not of recommended contrast.
There is no Braille information on toilet door nor is the toilet door sliding / with a
longer handle different from others, to know that it is an accessible toilet. No
separate toilet entrance for women and men. Visually challenged may take the
wrong direction, if there is no tactile signage on the door. It was said that there will
be somebody to assist. Not sure they will be for all the hours. But, still depending on
another is embarrassing. It may be questioned that how they are using other
stations and bus stand toilets. But, at least in new constructions let us follow
universal design standards and assist them.
2.3. The hand grip rails at Koyambedu station were sharp at the edges. The locking
system was different than Alandur.
2.4. The wash basin taps were sharp to hold and their handles were not as per
recommended standards.
3. Warning or Instructional boards near the escalator could not be read by persons with low
vision and are confusing for people with cognitive disabilities. Two or more colours used in
one board for same kind of information with not much pictorial signage is not user friendly.

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4. On the platforms, no information or directions to facilities like ATMs, Emergency

contact numbers, helpline are displayed.
5. In the station, information regarding induction loop facility is not displayed
prominently, but on top and cannot be noticed, until someone accidentally looks up and
sees it!
6. The signage (wheelchair symbol) for people with disabilities to board the train is not
prominent, the floor decal is too small and the tactile strip is too narrow for a person with
cane or low vision to stop easily before they get on to the edge of the platform.
7. The helpline numbers in the coach are not displayed in positions to immediately
notice.
8. Press the button for calling driver is not as per accessible standards of display for
low vision as well as persons with intellectual disabilities. No Braille instructions were
embossed.
9. The station name vinyls are flapping away at quite a height. No permanent display in
bigger sizes on walls on platforms to be read and understand by persons with low vision as
well as cognitive difficulties. The You-are-at station boards are too small to get noticed ,
placed almost just for namesake and not in colour standards for accessibility. Tactile maps
or diagrams are non-existent.
10. I am not sure whether there were direction signs for toilet locations for those on the
platform.
The only plus point was the staff who were courteous to assist us all the way up and down.
Given information, I believe at least the younger generation staff who accompanied us in
the audit trip got sensitized on accessibility requirements - this was a positive outcome.
Unfortunately the ISL-trained staff did not seem to know basic minimum sign language
gestures.
The photos with captions (37 MB) can be downloaded from http://www.we.tl/BQehK0dJWK

3. V.S. S UNDER

E TERNAL OPTIMISM VS . REFUSAL TO ACCEPT REALITY

ETERNAL OPTIMISM: THE CMRL FLASHBACK
We at the `Disability Rights Alliance' (DRA) have been trying to work with the Chennai Metro
Rail for more than three years, trying to ensure that at least this mode of public transport
might possibly try to make sure to accommodate the needs of people with disabilities. For
example, I have an email dated Jan 1, 2013, addressed to a CMRL official where I try to
describe a very dispiriting recce made by two of us from DRA of the CMBT Chennai Metro
which, according to The Hindu of Dec.18, 2012, was one of two stations whose structures
were then complete. This is what I said in that email:
It appears that (The Hindu's report notwithstanding), the station is likely to become
operational only around September. We asked the people at the site if we could look
at the drawings and check out such details as dimensions of elevators, toilets for the
disabled, gradients of ramps, etc.

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Unfortunately, the drawings we could see did not have many of these details. I
wonder if it will be possible for you to send us an e-copy of the latest drawings,
complete with all details. In fact, some details such as dimensions and specifications right down to flooring slip resistance, lighting lumens etc, would be appreciated.
DRAs requests as expressed from the start, included the following (in addition to
what was committed by Chennai Metro in its media release of May 2012)

Progress update on recommendations submitted so far

Transparency in sharing information to enable accurate inputs with the

group, or the appointment of an Accessibility Consultant to ensure the same.

- Disclosure to the public on what accessibility features will be present /

possible, and workaround suggestions for what will be inaccessible so that
the common passenger knows what to expect.

- Enable disabled citizens of this State to be apprised of CMRL progress by

making its website compliant as per GIGW / WCAG 2 guidelines.

- Ensure as far as possible, the following accessibility features as

practice / compliance : as outlined by ACCESS FOR ALL - Best Practices

best

I, for my part, would like to make two specific requests/recommendations:

i.

Can you please appoint an Accessibility consultant (such as Shivani Gupta of

AccessAbility, who is herself a wheelchair-user, in whose competence/
sensitivity almost every disabled person would have total confidence) to
ensure that our various concerns will be safeguarded?

ii.

Or if the above is not feasible for some reason, can you please provide us with
an itemised list of how the various issues discussed in the attachment
Accessibility-Inputs-For-Chennai-Metro-Rail have been addressed by CMRL?

And we have been trying ever since to pin down CMRL to reassure us with plans that met
international accessibility standards ... and trying ... and trying!
Two-and-a-half years later, yet another member of DRA finally managed, after what must
have been a record number of phone-calls and emails, to extract a promise that several
officials of CMRL would meet with a bunch of us this Wednesday (24/06/15) at 4 pm. We
were all excited that we would finally have a chance to talk to them and get some details
before the metro becomes operational - since it is so expensive to retrofit something that
has already been constructed with serious drawbacks in its plans.
We then get an email sent by another of our colleagues - at 12.25 on Wednesday - that she
had just received a phone call from the CMRL office to tell her that Due to some urgent
calls by the Government the entire team had to do an urgent inspection and report of all the
stations. They have rescheduled the meeting for after the 5th of July.
Now we learn the reason for the sudden cancellation: CM may launch the metro on Sunday,
yesterday's newspapers announced. So, as usual, we can only hope they got it right. In spite
of multiple requests that access audits be performed in advance, preferably by an access
expert who is herself a PwD, such requests are treated as mindless baying in the wind, and
they continue to make mistakes - and retro-fitting, being prohibitively expensive, will never
be considered - so that would be yet another opportunity lost.
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REFUSAL TO ACCEPT REALITY: RAILING AGAINST THE CURRENT STATE

We finally got to do our access audit of Chennai Metro.
Rather than boring you with a blow-by-blow description of the evening, let me simply
mention the more glaring goofs.
i.

When the train comes to the platform, there is a non-trivial gap between the
rake and the platform - so much in fact that the little front wheels of manually
operated wheelchairs run a serious and dangerous risk of slipping into the
gap if, by chance, it rotates through 90 degrees, as is likely when it attempts
to navigate the 2-3 inch height difference between the platform and the floor
of the train.
In order to avoid the danger described above, it becomes necessary to turn
around and reverse into the train, as the front wheel is large and runs no such
danger; but this means propelling oneself up and backwards to get into the train.
Given that the train doors are open only for half a minute, and that there are
likely to be some fifty or more other `normal' people pushing every one and thing
in the way in order to get into the train, all this is not very encouraging to the
wheelchair user.
To add spice to the exercise, there is a Trishul-shaped object bang in the middle
between the doors on either side of the train, intended for people to hang on to,
which one should manoeuvre around, and find something to hang on to. There is
nothing like a seat belt which one can lock one's wheelchair to.

ii.

The ticket counters are not low enough for use by people in a wheelchair. To
make matters worse, you cannot buy return ticket for A-B-A.

iii.

When we finally got to `B' (which was Koyambedu for us), I needed to use a
toilet. A helpful Samaritan told me there were toilets at both `concourse' and
`platform' levels, while we needed to go the `concourse' level to buy tickets to
get back to A' (Alandur). And there was no sign at platform level as to where one
may find the elusive toilets.

iv.

So I go down to the Concourse level; and the first problem was getting past the
turnstile. As our group had got separated when we boarded the train at Alandur,
we had stopped at an intermediate station, to get into a later train they must all
be coming on. And then, I learnt you should complete the travel from A to B
within prescribed time-limits. So when I inserted by token in the turnstile, it
wouldn't open. I would have learnt the reason for this if my wheelchair had been
a few feet taller, when I would have been able to see a red light flashing and a
sign explaining why it was flashing. One of the people who was `escorting' me
told me this as also where I should go to pay the excess fine of some Rs. 10 in
order to get through.

v.

By now, I am ready to use that toilet, and am directed to a `Gents' toilet, which is
clearly not accessible. When I find no signs which may give me a clue, I ask
somebody who tells me the only disabled friendly is on the platform level!
Meanwhile, I've got to go! So I go to the gents' toilet, and find, on opening the
door, that I have to walk across a room which has two wash basins and water all
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over the floor, which I need to gingerly negotiate before going to the room with
the WC.
vi.

After all this, and rubbing my wet hands on my jeans rather than use the
unappetising towel next to the wash-basin, I bought my ticket to Alandur prior to
ascending to the platform level and joining my friends.

And could not get home soon enough, to lick my wounds after this thoroughly demoralising
experience.

4. SMITHA SADASIVAN
a) TOILET:
The tactile path did not guide a person till the commode in toilet. The door locks
were high for wheel chair users. The doors to accessible toilets are narrow and
huge and cannot be managed by a wheel chair user on his / her own. A wheel
chair user cannot reach the flush button on the wall above the commode or
wash face at sink due to a handrail around the sink.
b) LIFT:
The buttons in the lift were also high for wheel chair users though there was
Braille embossment on the switches. The emergency call button took a long time
to answer and when someone answered it was not audible for wheel chair users
inside the lift though the person at the other end is able to hear us well and was
answering the call. There is no guidance for people with hearing impairment as
to how to connect with whom in case of emergency.
c) EMERGENCY AID:
There is a written message saying, in case of emergency, use stairs. But there is
no mention of alternate arrangement for people with disabilities in case of
emergencies. On the platform, when the emergency glass is broken and call is
made, none attended the call from the other end. It was high too for wheel chair
user.
d) DISPLAY MESSAGES:
Signs and Braille embossment for many displayed messages were missing. The
colour contrast was dull and font was smaller at different points where written
messages were displayed.
e) SIGN LANGUAGE:
A small part of the work force had been provided with a very short sign language
interpretation training but is single handed whereas most of Indians sign with
both hands. The one employee who managed to sign was very slowly signing
alphabets only in single hand which doesnt help a conversation. There needs to
be professional training and repeated practice sessions every day for 20 minutes
to keep them on pace with signing.
f) ENTRY TO TRAIN:
There was a considerable gap between the train and platform where a wheel
chair user cannot navigate himself/herself. There is no mechanism outside the
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train to delay the stoppage of train for more than a minute while a person with
disability or a group of them are entering the train. There is only a button for
stopping train for more duration from inside.
g) TICKET COUNTERS, TOKENS, TICKET VENDING MACHINE, TOKEN GATE WAYS,
etc were inaccessible for Ummul and other friends who had limited hand
function or used low wheel chairs.

5. RAJIV RAJAN
The DRA campaign with the CMRL authorities started with a meeting the PRO of CMRL 3
years ago. He assured that all international standards of accessibility will be followed in the
multiple crore city transport project. He also asked the members to give the requirements
as a submission and he will try to include it in their plan. We had a series of meetings after
the first one including with the CMD. The project authorities refused to share the blue print
of the construction plan when wanted to have a look and give our ideas according to the
plan. They started to avoid us beyond a point. We continued trying to work until June-end
when we had a meeting with the coach interior design team and discovered that the
emergency call system was not accessible.
I had one of my worst nightmares coming true on the day when the DRA team took a trial
trip in CMRL. Toilets in Alandur and Koyambedu stations were totally inaccessible for
wheelchair users. The tactile path way was broken with no connections between them at
many places. The cane that guides people with visual impairment could get stuck in holes on
the floor of Koyambedu Station. Front wheel of a wheelchair got stuck in between the train
and platform. Signages at various places were totally inaccessible for people with low vision.
There was no sign language interpreter available at the stations. Ticket counters were not
accessible for wheelchair users. The polished floor was too slippery for crutch users. All in all
it was one of my worst nightmares coming true. Where are the international accessibility
standards that were promised to us? I think the entire team of CMRL should take a trip to
South Korea to understand what the international standards are like. Why in India alone
there is such a wide gap between policy and implementation? Is it because the authorities
don't care about 10 percent of the population? Why there has to be such a big gap between
the cup and the lip?

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