188｜PracticeEnsuring urban public transportation mobilityfor people with intellectual disabilities
1. Background and goals
As of the end of 2006 there were around 550,000 persons diagnosed with intellectual disabilities inJapan, accounting for approximately 0.4% of the population.
The Law for Buildings Accessible to and Usable by the Elderly and Physically Disabled Person andthe earlier version of the Transportation Barrier-Free Law were combined into the Law for Promoting
Easy Mobility for the Aged and the Disabled Person, which went into effect in December 2006.
Due to these policies, various handbooks and guidelines related to human response and facilities
development have been published, but in many cases these resources remain unknown to transportation
operators in the field. This has led to insufficient addressing of issues related to persons with intellectualdisabilities.
Against such a background, this project was formed and research began in 2011 with the goal of
examining policies related to international trends in ensuring mobility for persons with intellectual disabilities, and thereby uncovering issues needing to be addressed in Japan.

2. Research content
2-1. International case study 1: SITES (Curitiba, Brazil)
The SITES handicapped student bus system, started in Curitiba, Brazil in 1983, uses standard buses
incorporated into an established transitsystem. In that system, buses from various
locations in the city arrive at a connecting terminal in the northeast downtown≪The SITES system≫

Students with a variety ofdisabilities board bus
Students attending
the same school

area at a time. Students board buses at thestop closest to their home and head forthe connecting terminal. Students fromSITES
Terminal
School

all schools use the buses and students
with a variety of handicaps share the samesystem. At the connecting terminal, theycan change to buses heading for theirSchoolChanging buses from home to busesheading to school

Figure 1. The SITES system

Project Leader: Fumihiko Nakamura
Professor and Dean, Institute of Urban Innovation, Yokohama National University

Ensuring urban public transportation mobility for people with intellectual disabilities｜189

individual schools.
Interviews were conducted with intellectually disabled students changing buses at the SITES terminal, as well as personnel, such as bus drivers and accompanying guides. This resulted in new findings,
including that there was little trouble related to changing buses and that the system presented a platform
for exchange that leads to increased sociability in participants.
2-2. International case study 2: The MogLi project (Germany)
MogLi is a research project supported by theGerman Federal Ministry of Education andResearch related to mobility for the intellectually handicapped. The project targets special
needs schools in the town of Nordhorn andtheir students. The project began an experimental attempt to utilize chartered buses forstudents, in which bus operators and local
police serve as guides. After verification experiments were complete, the system was put into
place, and guided busing is now performed ona regular basis.

Figure 2. Explaining how to ride the bus to school

2-3. Domestic experiment 1: Stop mark display experimentInstalling stop marks for students is ineffective without accompanying education regarding the meaningof those signs; unknowing students will simply pass by without heeding them. We therefore performed
an experiment in which student-oriented stop marks were installed in the vicinity of target schools forthree months, and during a field trip, the meaning of the signs were explained to students. This experiment had two goals: elucidating the effect of pre-education including field trip-based class instruction
regarding stop marks to students at special needs schools, as well as finding issues related to class
instruction on stop marks.
The experiment targeted elementary and junior high students
who commute by school bus, not high school students who wereable to travel to school on their own.
We were able to see results in post-interviews with school personnel, but for only a few months after the experiment, and thus
were not able to observe improvement of students’ understanding
beyond that. However, we expect that continued education will
result in students’ increased learning of traffic rules.

Figure 3. A stop mark2-4. Domestic experiment 2: Commuting to school by city bus
With the goal of elucidating the effects of educating city bus guidance involving transportation operators

190｜Practiceand issues related to performing such education, on January 10, 2013 we performed an experiment withthe cooperation of the Seya Yogo School (Yogo being a Japanese term used in special needs education) inYokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, related to bus guidance that targeted students at that school. The contents of instruction are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Contents of instruction regarding city buses

Item

Method in the experiment

Safety inExternal
Getting on and off the bus
safetyManners

Explanation of blind spots
Lining up at the bus stop
Reading destination displays(destination, route number)
Reading in-bus electronic displays(stop name)Showing dangerous spots at an actual bus stop
Lining up before actually boarding the bus
Creating a destination (route number) game to explain which busesshould not be ridden

Description of the stop button

Verbal description (including when to press), followed by one student
pressing button
Explanation of bus passes and prepaid cards, experience showing bus
passes to driver, and using card reader for prepaid cards
Verbal cautioning
Verbal cautioning to hold on to handrails and straps
Verbal cautioning; actually performing getting on the bus in turn
University student volunteers perform the role of injured persons.
University student volunteers perform the role of general passenger;
describe sitting in an empty seat

How to show tickets and bus passes
When to stand up
Points to follow while standing in the bus
Taking turns getting on the bus
Explanation of priority seating
How to sit (when someone else isalready sitting)
Not making noise, not running

Verbal description while watching the board display

Verbal cautioning

Interviews conducted after the experiment indicated that students hearing explanations by uniformed bus drivers or transportation operators had a greater impact than did those delivered by educators or guardians, allowing listeners to better retain the presented information and to recall it when conducting busing guidance.
2-5. Domestic experiment 3: Commuting to school by automated guided transit
It is possible that students who are able to travel to school on their own via public transportation also
use automated guided transit. We therefore conducted a similar experiment to examine whether students at a domestic special needs school could commute to school via line A on one such automatedmetro. The experiment was conducted on February 19, 2013 with 26 student participants. The contents
of instruction are shown in Table 2.
In post-interviews conducted with Yogo school educators, the following comments were noted:• The difficulty level was low, since students are already able to get to school by themselves. For
other students who are not able to get to school by themselves; however, experiential demonstrations would likely be required over verbal explanations.
• Students would likely better understand explanations given in stopped cars or in the station,rather than on moving cars.

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Table 2. Contents of instruction regarding automated metro
Outside Getting on In-car
safetyand off safety

Item

Explanation and teaching methods

Cautions about platform doors

Verbal cautioning about running to board cars, getting caught in doors, etc.

Manners

Verifying arrival time
Verbal confirmation of which station different lines are heading forExplanation and confirmation of prepaid card reader locations
Verbal instruction to give depleted prepaid cards to parents and teachers(How to use ticket vending machines)
to be recharged
Points to follow when standing from seats Verbal cautioning
Points to follow while standing in the car Verbal caution to hold on to handrails and straps
Verbal cautioning; actually performing getting on the car in turn
Taking turns getting on the car
Verbal cautioning to not make noise, and to not run; verification of waiting in line.
Waiting on the platform
University student volunteers perform the role of injured person
Description of priority seating
University student volunteers perform the role of general passenger; describe
How to sit(when someone else is already sitting) sitting in an empty seatVerbal cautioning to not make noise, not run
How to spend time in the car

Reading electronic displays
Description of arrival platforms
Passing through ticket gates

Other

Handling emergencies

Description of the intercom call, confirmation of the location of station staff

3. Conclusions
This project addressed issues in commuting to special needs schools by examining case studies overseas
and by performing verification experiments in Japan based on those overseas findings.
Working to further support the mobility of intellectually handicapped persons in the future will
not be possible without the support of not only schools, but also transportation operators, road management personnel, and transportation managers. A future topic is therefore the awareness building activities and the development of systems for promoting common understanding among transportation
officials.

4. Future outlook
We hope that the results of this research lead to deeper communications between schools for students
with intellectual disabilities throughout Japan and area transportation operators, the further expansionof various verification experiments, and furthered accumulation of knowledge.