Note: The output shown below is from the Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) system used in the Signage Subcommittee meeting and is unedited. The CART system was used to provide an accommodation to persons with hearing loss and persons who are deaf, and was streamed in real-time and available to the public on the internet during the meeting.

x--------------------------------x UNITED STATES ACCESS BOARD
RAIL VEHICLES ACCESS

x--------------------------------x

TELECONFERENCE
*DRAFT*

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2014

1:00 p.m.

Location: United States Access Board

1331 F Street, NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20004

Reporter: Sandra Gartrell2

P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S MR. BEATTY: This is Paul Beatty with the Access Board. As you know from the various emails I sent out, the purpose of this call is to understand what ADAAG requires. It is not to discuss whether ADAAG is appropriate in terms of the signage provisions appropriate to apply to the rail vehicles or discussion of what provisions need to be modified for purposes applying to rail vehicles or a time to complain about ADAAG provisions in general. The focus is to what does ADAAG require and to give you an idea how it may translate to a rail vehicle. We will also spend time reviewing the variable message signage in the American National Standards and Accessibility Standards, A.17.1. You got a handout on that, and also a handout of what we believe the 100 percent of the signage requirements in the current rail guidelines. I used the words "sign" and "signage" and searched the document. So as a colleague pointed out, there may be something buried in there that says marked by. But we will go through it and obviously there are some people on this line that know a lot more about the rail guidelines. At this point I will turn it over to Jim Pecht and we will get the ball rolling.3

MR. PECHT: For those who don't know me, I'm an accessibility specialist at the Access Board. I have been here since November of '91. For your information, also in the room is Marsha Mass and Melissa Anderson, Aromie Noe, in our office here. So if you have looked through the requirements in ADAAG, you will notice in the scoping there are basically several different ways that ADAAG treats signs. First is signs required to be both visual and tactile with braille. Those are required to be in a certain location so they can been found. There are requirements for signs that are just required to be visual in nature. And those have no specific requirements to location. And then there are signs which we don't really cover, which is sort of temporary signs, things like temporary signs in front of a door or things like a directory or a menu in a restaurant. We really don't cover those things and there are also things like signs for specific pieces of equipment that really are not covered by the standard as well. There are only three or four signs which are actually required. And those are basically the international symbols and required to reserve certain things or note certain things.4

Is there anybody having trouble hearing me?

Because I am -- MS. HAMLIN: This is Lise Hamlin. I'm having some trouble hearing you. Your voice is very soft. But I am getting the CART, but if you could project a little, that would be helpful. Thank you. MR. PECHT: That is the first time I have ever been accused of being soft of voice. I will try to stick my mouth right up to the microphone. MS. GOLDEN: You blanked out for a few moments and then you came back and that it is what I heard. MR. PECHT: Let's see how this works and we will go from here. Again, like I was saying, the standards, as far as buildings are concerned, look at signs in different ways, signs which are required to be tactile with the braille and visual are required to be in certain locations so they can be found. Other signs which have no requirements for location, only need to meet the visual requirements. Temporary signs are not required to comply. And signs which indicate specific pieces of equipment really are not covered by the standard as well. The only thing that IS specifically required as far a sign is concerned are the international symbols in certain circumstances. So from there, let me sort5

of step back and let you start raising some questions about what you have any sort of confusion or need more understanding with. <<<: Jim, I don't know if you were going to go through Section 703 -- MR. PECHT: Could you identify yourself when you first come on. MR. MALDARI: I don't know if you were going to discuss 703 later. MS. MAZZ: Who are you, please? MR. MALDARI: Frank Maldari. MR. PECHT: 703 is the technical requirements and I assume this is part of the place where you ask questions about what you are confused about. MR. MALDARI: You mentioned that only the signs that have a location requirement need to have various lettering and braille, right? MR. PECHT: Right, otherwise how would you find them.MR. MALDARI: I'm not against that. But when I read 703.1.2, it says signs that provide direction or information about the interior spaces and facilities of the site, should comply with 703.2. MR. PECHT: Let me stop and go back a minute. You have to look at both the scoping chapter up in6

Chapter 2, the scoping section for signs is Section 216 and that is the section which tells you which signs have to meet which requirements. And the technical requirements and the technical chapter, Chapters 3 through 10, 703 is the technical requirement for a sign. So, in other words, if you would go to -- MS. MAZZ: Jim, maybe we want to find out if people had the opportunity to enjoy the webinar on signs. If most of you didn't have that opportunity, then maybe we need to backup and -- MS. HAMLIN: I have the PowerPoint, but I could not through my system. I don't know if it was captioned, but I could not hear what was going on with the webinar. So I didn't get whatever you use -- I see the PowerPoint, but I don't know if you had more information there that was not on the PowerPoint. MS. MAZZ: Yes. And there was a CART transcript that should play with it. MS. HAMLIN: Okay. I didn't see it. I can go back to it later. So if there was a high point that you wanted to highlight beyond the slides, that would be helpful. MS. MAZZ: Did anybody else get to see the webinar?7

MR. CORAN: I looked at it but didn't realize there was any audio to it. MR. SLAUGHTER: I saw the webinar and I think probably the confusion is where the PowerPoint link is on the page, the webinar link is, I think, in the upper right, away from that. So it is not there, right there together. MS. MAZZ: Ah, if you only saw the PowerPoint you probably didn't get much out of it. So maybe we need to back up and discuss the relationship between scoping and technical and go over some of that a little bit for folks. MR. PECHT: Okay. As Marsha was saying, you have to look at both the scoping and the technical. Primarily you look at scoping first. You have to look at the scoping to find out which signs have to meet which requirements. So, for example, in Section 216.2, designations stated interior and exterior signs identifying permanent rules and spaces shall comply with 703.1, 703.2 and 703.5 and it goes on to talk about pictograms. MS. SCHACTER: Sorry. I dropped the call and came back in because I was raising a question and could not be heard and I -- My question is not about what the rules say, but8

how do we change what it does say. Right now for people with hearing loss, the only symbol that is used is the umbrella symbol, which is an ear with a slash, which says (operator interruption) which if you have a form of hearing access, but good luck in figuring out what it is. Unlike with people with wheelchairs, the specific individual symbols are needed. MR. BEATTY: Janice, you may raise a valid points. But at this point the conference is specifically focused in on what ADAAG says. The purpose is to give committee members an understanding of what ADAAG requires and then a separate conference to evaluate whether the ADAAG provisions regarding signage are appropriate or need modification for application to rail vehicles. So at this point we want people to understand what ADAAG requires and then they can take those parameters, translate it to rail vehicles signages and decide whether it is appropriate in that context. MS. MAZZ: Right, and you won't have any impact on ADAAG itself. MS. SCHACTER: So if we understand what it means then we wait for a different phone call? MR. BEATTY: The second conference call purpose9

is to focus on if we use ADAAG are provisions in ADAAG appropriate for rail vehicles and are any provisions needing modifications for purposes of rail vehicles. We are not modifying the ADAAG requirements as it relates to building the facilities. We are simply using it as a tool to develop rail guideline provisions regarding signage. I will turn it back to Jim to continue the discussion about what ADAAG requires. MS. SCHACTER: Okay. I will jump off because I will join the second call. Because I know what the rules say; I just don't agree with them. MR. BEATTY: Okay. MS. SCHACTER: Great. Bye. Sorry. MR. BEATTY: Jim, would you continue with the scoping. Thank you. MR. PECHT: So, anyway, you will notice in the provision I read it doesn't reference every section in Chapter 703 for signs. It only references a few. It will go to those requirements and they may reference you to various parts of the standards in other places. But for the most part, you will be limited in what you are looking at with regards to what the scoping directs you to. So in other words, for signs which designate a permanent number space like a room10

number, those are required to be both visual and tactile and include the braille and they have a specific mounting height and location. There is another row vision in the scoping which talks about signs which give you direction to or information about functional spaces. And those will send you to just the visual requirements. They don't pick up the tactile requirements and they don't pick up the specific location. So once you sort of understand what scoping does, you can sort of figure out, "Okay, in a rail car I want this sign to do this so I need to put a scoping requirement for that type of sign." And that will send you to the technical requirements that tells you what the sign has to look like to meet the requirements for accessibility with regard to height of character, stroke, width and character spacing and all that, finish and contrast and all that kind of stuff. Does that help with regards to understanding how the scoping works with the technical requirements? <<<: I thought that was very helpful, Jim. MR. MALDARI: I thought that was very helpful. I do have a question, though, in looking at 216.2, I'm looking at that section now.11

MR. PECHT: Who is speaking? MR. MALDARI: Frank Maldari. 2.16 is clear, it is a room number, I think the toilet room, designation of toilet room would apply to, correct? MR. PECHT: Right. MR. MALDARI: Those are the two that come to mind. The ones I'm thinking of is means of egress. Any exit sign? MR. PECHT: At the door that would designate a permanent room or space. MR. MALDARI: But it has to be at the door? MR. PECHT: Yes, the ones at the hallway with arrows are informational and directional signs. MS. MAZZ: I refer you to 216.4. MR. MALDARI: I'm looking at that now. MS. MAZZ: These terms have meaning in a building. They may not have the same meaning on a vehicle, but basically these are the signs at the exit points. They are not the directional signs. MR. MALDARI: Okay. So if there is a sign near a door that tells you how to open -- release the emergency door, is that something that this applies to

or not? MS. MAZZ: This would not apply to the raised letter and braille requirements to that type of sign.12

These are the designations, essentially. So, in other words, it's the sign that says "this is an exit door." MR. MALDARI: Okay. MS. MAZZ: Obviously -- and there is sort of an art to deciding what is a sign and what is just a label. MR. MALDARI: Right. MS. MAZZ: And in some cases you will find labels on all sorts of things. And typically we don't regard those as signs subject to 216 in a building. But you may in a vehicle want to apply some of the signage criteria to certain labels if you think they are important for people to know about. MR. MALDARI: Okay. I'm just trying to be clear exactly what we need. I know -- well, there is no room number on a car, but the toilet room is like one of the ones I'm clear about. And if there was an exit door sign on one of the doors, that is one of the ones that applies, right? MR. PECHT: In a building. You may choose to do something different in rail car. If you had a sign that says "in an emergency please follow direction of train staff," that would be an informational sign. That would not necessarily be raised in braille,13

because in the building world, because it is just an informational sign. It doesn't give you a designation of a space. It just tells you what to do in a space. MR. HOFF: I think the signs in the building only are required when there are signs to each room. In other words, if the building is so simple that you don't require signs at the entry doors, then you also don't require the room designation signs. Is that not

correct? MR. PECHT: I'm sorry. We had a slight debacle here. Can you repeat the last part of your question. MR. HOFF: Yes. In the scoping the rooms designation sign is only required to be accessible if there are room designation signs. So if you have a simple building with no room designation, you are not requiring accessible room designation signs? MR. PECHT: Yeah. The ADA as far as the buildings are concerned don't require -- MR. HOFF: I'm speaking to Marsha's point. We may want to do something different in vehicles. I think it is a valid point to point out in simple situations -- and I think a rail vehicle is probably that case. And I realize we will get to that in a second phone call. To Frank's point I think I know what he is asking. When things are simple you don't14

really need room designation signs. The exit signs are simply for egress on the rail vehicle as opposed to room designation signs. MS. MAZZ: Although most people think that the entrance you enter into a building is always a required exit, that is often not the case. And I don't know vehicles well enough to tell you that, you know, the way into the vehicle is always a required exit. I guess it is. But you also may have other types of exits like operable windows and the like, or hatches, who knows. I don't know. In any case the reason that the exits have to be identified in a building is there are so many doors that lead you nowhere or won't provide you protection. I don't know if that is similar on a train. I am guessing not. MR. SLAUGHTER: Going back a number of years we adopted as many things -- <<<: Can you hear me? <<<: Hello? MS. MAZZ: We hear you. MR. SLAUGHTER: So designated exit signs again so people don't try to go into the wrong spaces, we do and in some cases we will have electrical lockers, or things that are obviously doors that might be15

confusing, labeled with raised letters and braille. Now, we designate sleeping car room numbers, which is we designate seat numbers as well. Again, we were thinking about it from the terms of when someone leaves their seat and goes to the restroom, we want them to have the best opportunity to get back to the seat they were in, especially in a reserved train where that is their seat for the duration of the trip. So I think we may have at Amtrak, we may have gone a little further than anticipated. But we try to look at what signs we apply the tactile letters and braille to based on just being sort of common sense for what someone will need to function within the train. So hopefully we get to discuss that in the next more thoroughly. MS. GOLDEN: I mean, any facility has that as some sort of irrelevant doorways and others that are needed by users of the facility. MS. MAZZ: In order to help people get a little bit oriented, Jim has mentioned the difference between the scoping and the technical sections and how you apply the technical sections through the scoping. One of the things I wanted to mention to you is that the excerpt from the ICC ANSI contains Section16

703, note the numbering is the same as the ADA standards and that is because we are working so closely with them, but the provisions are not identical. So you will have to read through them closely. And one of the main reasons we gave you Section 703 from ICC ANSI is that ANSI standard now contains provisions for variable message signs. Variable message signs are not currently addressed in the ADA standards. And we thought that you might want to take a look at those requirements for VMS signs because we think that they are likely to be used in vehicles and in trains, generally. And maybe this is an opportunity to apply those criteria in vehicles. MS. HAMLIN: Can I ask when you say variable message signs, and I did see that, are we talking electronic signs or something else? MS. MAZZ: We are. We are talking about the signs that are like the signs you see in Metro when the next bus or next train is arriving. They move. There is motion to them. They are not static, usually. MS. HAMLIN: I thought so. I just wanted to be double sure that that is what we are talking about here.17

MR. PECHT: One thing that didn't get to you from the ANSI, the ANSI added to definitions in their definition section that did not get sent to you with regard to the signage and I will read it to you quickly. "Variable message signs or VMS are electronic signs that have a message with the capacity to change by means of scrolling streaming or paging behind a background." And the second definition is, "Variable message signs, VMS characters, characters of an electronic sign that is composed of pictures in array and high resolution. VMS characters have variable pictures counts of 16 or great. Low resolution have a variable picture count of 7 to 15 rows." That is the definition added to go along with their technical requirements in 703 with variable message signs. MS. MAZZ: And we can send those to you. MS. HAMLIN: Thank you. That would be great. I appreciate that. MR. PECHT: I just want to add one thing about signs in general. The ADA really -- it is very rare that the ADA actually requires a sign. Usually signs are required by other things, by emergency egress or just a desire to make the building more comprehensible. But technically the ADA does not come18

in until you -- say, when you provide a sign, you know you have to provide a sign in a certain format. In other words, if you are providing information, certain information has to be accessible to certain people. Sort of the discrimination issue with the

ADA. In other words, in a building if you have a janitor's college and you don't want to tell people it is a janitor's closet and you can keep the door locked, you don't have to put a sign up for it. That is perfectly acceptable. MS. MAZZ: Under the ADA. MR. PECHT: Under the ADA. You guys will think about what kind of information you want provided in what format and that is the kind of thing you need to look at with regard to the fixed part of the train. MS. MAZZ: And now that Terry Pacheco has joined, I would suggest you also look at the exceptions to 216, because I know Terry in a meeting previously mentioned things like menus at the cafe car. In the ADA standard menus are expressly exempt. So if you look at the exceptions to 216, generally as well as the exceptions to 216.2, 216.3. So, again, you now, as you begin to look at this, you may want to ask why19

menus were exempt from the requirements for raised letter and braille, for example. MR. MICHEL: I just had a basic question. If all signs are supposed to somewhat be accessible based on the nondiscriminatory aspect of being able to have access to or grant access to the most amount of people, you know, where do we or where do we draw the line -- do we need to allow for a light switch to have braille or is that up to the rail authority to decide if they want to comply with that? MS. MAZZ: Currently there is no requirement in the ADA standards to provide any kind of sign at a light switch. MR. MICHEL: Okay. MS. MAZZ: If you did provide one that said, "Hey, this is your light switch," that would be, you know an informational sign, I think, at best or "flip up to turn on lights." MR. MICHEL: Isn't the whole point of a sign to give you information in the first place. So where is the line when providing fully accessible signage? MS. MAZZ: I think that is something that your committee wants to talk about. We can tell you where that line gets drawn in buildings, but that doesn't mean you have to respect that for the train. You can20

do something different. MR. MICHEL: I agree with that. MR. SLAUGHTER: I think the difference with a train going from a building, there is a certain expectation for things being in certain places and that is almost always the case. When you open the door you expect the light switch to be just inside the door. Quite often with the train, because of the spacial situation and the restrictions of where things can be, items are not always where you would expect them to be based on the building. I think that is something we have to consider and I think the authorities have to be given some leeway on how we handle that. I think there needs to be guidance, but, obviously, when we start talking about sleeping cars and things like that, right now those kind of things really only effect Amtrak or a few private operators. We are willing to listen. As I said before, we have done, you know, a lot of -- made a lot of effort to make signs accessible beyond what the requirements are because the requirements are, quite honestly, rather pitiful, I think. But, anyway, we will discuss that more on the21

second call for sure. Where I get more concerned is when we look at the architectural requirements, the technical requirements versus the scoping where we require -- we have icons in an attempt to kind of communicate to people who are not reading in English but are used to seeing icons in other parts of the world. We have an icon but we can't have that icon as large as required by the architectural side because we just don't have the space. But we can have raised letter and braille in the same space. So we have to decide how to handle that going forward. MS. MAZZ: So that is a good one to sort of focus on as an example of something that is required in standards. Right now the ADA standards say if you use a pictogram to designate a permanent room or space, then you have to have raised letters in braille that translate the meaning of that pictogram. You don't have to raise the pictogram because the research that we had access to has indicated that people who are blind have significant difficulty getting the meaning of a picture tactilely. You do, for example, at the women's room if you just label it with the international symbol of women,22

you do have to have the equivalent below that says in raised letters and in braille" women." The question -- and there is a requirement for the size of the visual image of that glyph in terms of its background. You have to have a six-inch vertical background for that glyph. That is not the raised letter requirement. That is the visual component. So a good question would be, for the purpose of rail where you are using a lot of different icons: Is it as necessary to have that glyph be large enough for someone with low vision to read if you provide the raised letters and the braille equivalents? MR. BEATTY: Maybe some icons are not required to meet the requirements. MS. MAZZ: So that is a question for you to ask yourselves. I'm not taking a position. I'll just suggesting that is a question for you all to consider. MR. BEATTY: That requirement does not apply to all icons. They need to know that. MS. MAZZ: As Paul is pointing out, that requirement only applies where you use the icon to name the space, to designate the space. You can use an icon or a pictogram such as a no smoking pictogram. That is information about the rules of conduct in the space; it's not the name of the space. This is not23

the no smoking room. Not the name of the space. It is not required to have raised letters in braille and it is not required to have the minimum six inch field behind the glyph. MR. SLAUGHTER: That is the way I interpreted the technical requirements. I think there may be situations, again, in the effort to communicate to the broadest number of people possible, we are using icons. But we are using them on a scale that doesn't match the technical requirements for the icons, but would work for someone maybe who is not speaking English, who cannot even read the sign with good vision. So, again, I think we will need to work through that to come to the best place. Because I would hate for us to be in a situation where we don't provide an icon because we don't have the space to provide it with the six inch field. MR. BEATTY: Blair, can you give us an example of an icon you are thinking of? MR. SLAUGHTER: With the restroom designation where you have the male or female, we actually have an icon -- because it is a unisex restroom, where there is both, the sign itself can get quite large for the door or for the door post or wherever the sign is going.24

The same may be true for a room designation in a sleeping compartment where we may have an icon and a number, but there is no room to make that icon as big as is required. So we might look at it and go, "Well, if we have to have an icon for a certain size just because we provided it, maybe we don't provide the icon." That seems like a disservice generally across the broader population to do that. MR. BEATTY: We can continue that part of the discussion at the next call. It is important for us to take your questions as it relates to if "I use the ADAAG provisions do I understand what the outcome would be?" And then later you can evaluate whether the outcome is appropriate. So anymore questions regarding use of ADAAG or the variable signage requirements from ANSI? MS. PACHECO: I just have a quick question. Again on this issue of the icons, where would we tie in, for instance, if they were using an icon on a touch pad? I'm thinking, you know, the reading lamp over your seat, especially on planes today, could be on trains next year. There are a group of things and they are only usable by touch pad. Those are very small icons. You are looking at, what, an inch or inch half squared? What do we do for those? Is there25

a requirement in the ADAAG for those? MS. MAZZ: There is currently not a requirement in the ADAAG for those. The ADAAG only addresses those signs that identify permanent rooms and spaces for the braille and raise letter characters and other signs have visual characteristics. And this is where -- I don't know, Terry, if you were on the line, but this is where the distinction between labels and signs may be getting made. You know, you put an icon on the light switch, I think of that more as a label than a sign, largely the types of signs that are addressed in the ADA standards. But you may want to extend some requirements to those labels for rail vehicles. And that might make some sense. Or you might want to develop some different kinds of criteria, given how little real estate there is next to those switches above your head typically on an airplane, but I do think they have them on trains as well. Maybe you want some other way to communicate which switch you push for what function. And maybe it doesn't have to be visual. Maybe it can be tactile. Maybe there can be some other way to do that. I know I myself when I get on an airplane I'm26

very reluctant to turn on the light because I typically wind up calling the flight attendant. MS. PACHECO: So do I. MS. MAZZ: And then I can't turn the thing off. MS. HAMLIN: I didn't see definitions for labels and signs and so forth. Is that somewhere in the documents you sent us?
MS. MAZZ: No. MS. HAMLIN: Can we get a definition? MS. MAZZ: Well, it is what it is. We look at signs in the broadest -- in the broader sense. And we specifically tell you that there are essentially two classes of signs: There is the signs that designate permanent rooms and spaces and then there are the signs that provide information about -- directions to or information about rooms and spaces. So a label on a light switch doesn't do either of those things. MR. PECHT: And as far as the definition is concerned, basically if there is something in the documents that is not specifically defined in either definition section or in one of the reference standards, we default to the collegiate dictionary definition for that term. MS. HAMLIN: Okay. Thank you.27

<<<: John, Amtrak. I don't know if this is the right call to ask the question. I had questions about requirements for safety seat back cards with braille requirements. MR. PECHT: Could you explain to me what that is. <<<: I don't know if you are familiar with any of the Amtrak safety seat back cards, but we do have a lot of information on most of our cards. And we are looking to have every card have a braille option when needed, but I'm not sure what exactly is required. MR. PECHT: That is something we would require in the guidelines. It is a moveable piece of equipment or furniture or something like that, which the guidelines and standards really don't cover. They cover things that are bolted to the train, part of the train, affixed to the train in some way, not a piece of paper that you put in a seat back. That would be something that might be covered by the DOT regulations as far as general -- MS. MAZZ: The general requirements for effective communication. MR. PECHT: Correct. But not as far as what we are talking about. We are talking about you take a sign and you stick it on the wall, that is where it will stay. It is going to be a permanent sign on the28

wall. <<<: Okay. MR. PECHT: I just want to point out when you start talking about requirements for tactile letters and braille, what needs to go along with that is a consistent location so it can be found. If you are going to put a sign, let's say, for a fire extinguisher 10" off the ground, nobody who is blind is looking for 10" off for a sign. There is either a need if you want something like that to sort of have a location where you can find out where certain things are found in the train that is consistent or you want to tie it to something like a seat or a door or something that that is where it is going to be always, every time you go in every train. MR. SLAUGHTER: That brings up a very good point, even with emergency exit signs. We start to overlap with some of the APDA recommended practices for sign placement for things like exits. And in some of those cases there is a requirement for low level path marking and way finding elements that are very close to the floor based on the expectation you may have a car filling with smoke and people would be down at that level and need that information. And in those cases, we do provide exit signs with29

raised letter and braille. Except in this case the raised letter is to the scale that is pushed by APDA, which is large, it is pretty darn big. MS. MAZZ: Typically there is not a problem with larger raised letter. It is when you try to make them smaller they become unreadable by folks who read raised letters. MR. SLAUGHTER: And that is something from a guidance standpoint I think would be very helpful. If you look at diminishing -- let me think of the word. A diminishing need for the information from a clarity standpoint. Is there room for lettering to be smaller than the minimum, which the smallest I have seen is half inch. I heard discussion in the past about 3/8, but you start to get into the realm it is not understandable, it is not readable by someone who is reading it tactilely. I'm not sure there is any room for discussion as it relates to trains, again, because of the space limitation the trains have. Or if we say if it is a tactile letter it will be the minimum that is already defined because that works and anything smaller doesn't. MS. MAZZ: In the first meeting that we had, I seriously cautioned you against setting different30

standards for the same thing in two different documents. I will reiterate that you would have to have very compelling reasons for a lesser standard in this document or departing from the technical criteria. And those compelling reasons would have to be based on the specific needs of the vehicle or the specific characteristics of the vehicle. And you would also want to know that you will achieve a meaningful result. So if you, for example, shrink the raised letters down significantly or even some, we would want to know that they are, in fact, usable by people with vision impairments. MR. SLAUGHTER: That makes perfect sense. Going back to what John from Amtrak mentioned about the information and safety cards, again looking at the special differences in trains and just the real estate that is available for signs that would be appropriately sized, there may be some elements that are -- some level of information. Because, again, a train is a different environment than a building and in a building there are certain expectations of where things are and they almost are always in those places. Once someone is familiar with the train, then it31

is quite common. You know, you sort of think, well, in a train this device is going to generally be in

space. But for the sake of familiarization and communicating that to folks, I think there is room -- we discussed it internally in the past of relying on, in some cases, braille information cards that help people orient themselves and understand where things are generally in the room and all the other things we communicate for people just traveling on the train so that they get all the same information as everyone else would get in a card that would be visually readable. And I realize that -- again, I will go back to Chris Hart's definition. We are only talking about the things if you take the car and open the door and shake it, everything that falls out is not part of this committee. But to a point, there has to be some link so we make sure at the end of the day we do get all the information to people one way or the other. MS. MAZZ: If you take a look at that scoping provision in 216, you note that, for example, menus, seat row designations and assembly spaces and things like that are expressly exempt from these requirements.32

These may be things you may want to scope or you may want to scope them to some other kind of standard, once we haven't contemplated yet. I just put that on the table because I know that menu was already an issue that was brought forward by one of the committee members. Seat row designations, for example, you know, as you said, if you have a reserved seat, you want to be able to get back to that seat, largely if you left your coat in there. So you may want to take a look at what is covered and what is not covered by the ADA standards and see how that marries up to what you want to cover in some way in trains. I think starting with scoping is a good way to proceed. What do we want to cover, what do we want to give people access to and, then, secondarily, how do we do it. In some cases you may be borrowing from the sign standards in the ADA or the sign requirements in ANSI A.117 or you may have another way of communicating the information that is not currently contemplated in the ADA standards. MR. SLAUGHTER: I think from Amtrak's point of view, we would be most interested from the community's viewpoint what information is most needed. And I think we will find in some cases we already have taken33

steps to provide that information. There will be other places where we will have to figure out how to do that. So I would be very interested to hear what the community versus the railroads thinks need to be out there. MS. MAZZ: Maybe that is a homework assignment for everybody, is to go back and develop a list of those things that you want -- you believe should be covered in some way. For the moment I would urge you to put aside whether or not you think you can meet the technical requirements in the ADA. But those bits of information that you think should, in fact, be conveyed to people who don't see or who have low vision and then come back and see how those lists dovetail each other. Does that sound like something you could do for the next meeting? <<<: Absolutely. MR. HOFF: I would like to take a second just to draw on some examples of people -- customers who have expressed interest in knowing information that is only available visually. For instance -- I know people have talked about this before -- the emergency34

evacuation windows, for instance, or how to manually open the doors in case of an emergency. That operationally you saw obviously is not something that we could possibly provide because of the amount of information that is provided in print form. There is not enough space to provide it in raised letter braille. But perhaps we can look to provide that information another way. I think it is -- obviously if we are putting information on the vehicles, on the signs and it is a lot of information, we think it is important enough that everybody should know it. Obviously with the reduced real estate that we have on board, we should be looking for other means to provide that information. I am sorry I am not providing any solutions at this point. I am just saying the reality is we don't have a lot of real estate to provide raised letter braille sign that could be very important information. If it is important enough for us to put it up there, it is important for everybody to know it. So we should look for other means to provide that information and then concentrate on the areas, if it is simple enough information, that we want everybody to know, then we find the real estate to provide that.35

The more complicated stuff, I think we should just push it aside for a second. Like I said, how to manually open a closed door in an emergency, that is like two or three paragraphs. That is not going to happen. We should look -- I don't think this is the forum to do it -- look for other ways to provide the information for the vehicle. That may be the solution and we may have to come up with new technologies that are available on board. I want to make the point if it is important enough for people to see visually, it is important enough for people to get that information as well. MS. MAZZ: You may have other signs that gives you a warning, for example, "don't do this." MR. HOFF: Exactly. We have pretty important information about how the conductors are pretty much the captains of the ships and there are laws protecting them and there they have rights to do certain things. We find it important and we put it on every rail car. But it is only visually. Maybe we can provide that information through some other means somehow on the vehicle, but maybe through some other technology. But it is not something we can say, "All right, we will do raised letter braille on that sign too." We should keep that in the back of our minds to36

provide that information. Because if we think it is important enough to put it up visually, it is important for everybody. MR. SLAUGHTER: That is an excellent point. I think as we move down the path here there are opportunities for those of us on the railroad side to somehow have some consolidation. Largely those who operate in the same general area, so in some cases where we can have common messages we can benefit by sharing that information back and forth so we are telling passengers in the same way across, regardless of how we do that. One thing we have -- I was just thinking of an example of a door. It is pretty obvious when you touch the door handle or you see the door how to operate that door. We don't give instructions on how to operate the door, but we do give a warning not to open that door unless it is an emergency or by a member of a crew. So -- and that message is given in both -- just visual and raised letter and braille because it is critical. MS. MAZZ: In the end, Blair, I hear you say it is possible if the committee decides some information is just not going to be effectively conveyed using a37

permanent installation of something on the train, that they could have a recommendation to your office that that information is important and should be somehow conveyed? MR. SLAUGHTER: Yes. And I say that with respect to the Access Board who has given a direction on what our scope is here in the committee. But, yeah, if it just doesn't make practical sense to be a part of the card, I think the railroads -- we still need have some way of (inaudible) pieces together. MR. MALDARI: To follow through with what they do for buildings, the signs that are in braille and raised lettering are the ones we know where they are going to be. So you really need -- if you are going to make a sign in braille, you really have to know where it is so you can find it. MS. MAZZ: Right. MR. MALDARI: There are decals all over the place and the only way you know where they are is by seeing them. You have to be careful. Yes, there is a lot of information out there, unfortunately it is really for the people who can see, otherwise they won't know how to find it. And opening a door, well, you know, one thing that concerns me is if you have fairly good sight you can see through the38

door window and make sure you are not getting yourself in a hazardous condition, if you do open a door in an emergency condition. But there may be some bad points to that. The other thing that I wanted to get clear was currently now in the regulations that we are talking about for the buildings, if you provide a sign in raised lettering that is not required to be in raised lettering or braille, can it be in one or the other or is there some requirement that whenever you have raised lettering you must have braille? MS. MAZZ: The requirement is when you are required to have a tactile sign, that tactile sign must have both raised lettering and braille. But if you are not required to have a tactile sign, it would be my view you could do whatever you want, provided that you comply with the requirements for visual signs, if they apply. MR. MALDARI: Right. That make sense. Like Blair was saying before, if you only have so much space, maybe you can put one or the other. And if you are not tied into putting both because it is a regulation to have it, then you have the opportunity to provide the information in another means without making a decal that is too big to fit in the space39

that you have. MR. WIESMAN: Can you hear me? Good. I was in Japan 20 years ago and I noticed at the top of the staircases on the subway on the handrail they have braille and everybody knows to look at it. Even though it is not downstairs even. And there is all kinds of signage for people who can see. All the information they try to get into that tactile thing on the handrail at the top of the stairs -- and maybe there -- when we are creating a new standard, maybe we could have a location on a train where information that is available to sighted people could all be in one place about evacuation and things like that, things you really want to get the message across. And people would just know you look in this place because that would become the practice, which is what happened, they told us, in Japan. MS. MAZZ: Except when they push on those stairs I don't think you have a whole lot of time to read. <<<: Good point. <<<: Other than that, though, it is a great idea. <<<: Maybe put it at the bottom of the stairs. MS. MAZZ: Actually, Coco Reign in Boston developed a system she puts the braille essentially40

upside down on the underside of a handrail. As people go through a museum or some other site, they read the braille as they go along. It is pretty cool. MR. WETHERELL: I would think if we do something on a subway, I like the idea of having a location. If there are evacuation or emergency instructions, I would be a proponent for it being in the same location. MS. MAZZ: Makes sense. So it looks like a variety of different types of things that can get communicated. You have warnings, you have rules of conduct, you have operational instructions, you have way finding information, such as exit and maybe seat and row, and you have information that you convey visually through things like menus and other types of signs, if you will. Can we try and organize that a bit? I think maybe your issues list provides some of that organization, doesn't it, Paul?
MR. BEATTY: Some. MS. MAZZ: Yeah. MR. PECHT: Actually that is what I was going to add as part of your homework assignment. In addition to listing the kind of information you want put out on a train, try to categorize it into what type of sign.41

If it is something you want to cover or not. In other words, maybe designs that are specifically geared toward train personnel can be exempt. In other words, this is a hatchway to the hydraulic system. The passengers don't need to worry about that. Or Marsha talked about labels. Do you want to cover labels? Do you not want to cover label? Do you want to define what a label is? Those kinds of things. If you want to think about categorizing the different type of sign and how you want them put out. MS. MAZZ: I don't think that UL label on the fire extinguisher has to be raised letter in braille. But if you have operating instructions on the fire extinguisher, there might be a necessity to convey how to operate the fire extinguisher to someone who doesn't see. MS. HAMLIN: We also take in the consideration the variable message signs we were talking about earlier. That could be used in multiple situations. So we should maybe consider that as well. MS. MAZZ: I will point out that VMS criteria is only visual criteria. It is for people who have low vision. There is nothing in the VMS criteria that conveys that information tactilely or audibly for42

people who do not see at all. So it is an -- it is the electronic equivalent to the visual signs criteria in 703. MR. HOFF: And it is something that we should consider. I think we talked about considering that, obviously, is the converse of providing visual equivalence to the audible announcement is the converse of that, providing the audible announcement as the equivalent to the visual. So where we can, where we think it is important enough to make an audible announcement, we should do that, obviously. We are talking about something different than the visual signs that are on decals all throughout our vehicles. But certainly any type of announcement -- I'm sorry. Any type of visual announcement obviously should be broadcast audibly. I don't think that is a big deal. That is not currently written, as I understand it, in the ADAAG, but maybe it should be. MS. MAZZ: You're right. And, you know, to the extent that there is also an underlying requirement for effective communication, I think that, you know, we have had to rely on that for the converse. MR. HOFF: And certainly we understand that because the public address systems, the audible43

announcements have been around forever. We have had flip-flop for some time, but certainly nothing like we have today with the visual equivalent to the public address system. That is why that was a regulation, obviously, that it was always assumed we had a public address, an audible announcement for everything. But now we are getting -- the visuals are so prevalent in providing such other messages, that I think we need the converse. So at least in the vehicle aspect we should consider doing that, you know, explicitly saying we provide the audible equipment to the visual signs as well. MR. SLAUGHTER: Along with that our conductors in giving their audible message will refer people to the seat back instruction card that is specific to the vehicle they are in, because it goes into more detail about what to do in emergencies. And post 09/11 there is information that our security folks have added and sort of heaped upon the card so it does more than it was originally intended to. And that is information, again, that may not be practical at all to try to put in a central location. To give you some background, at one time we had the emergency exit instructions for our cars occur typically in one or two places in the car at each end.44

What we saw the folks who sat close to the sign, within a few rows, actually read the sign and everyone else didn't. That was part of what drove us to the seat back information card, similar what you find on an airliner. That may not be practical for a lot of transit agencies because the things would probably walk like they have legs. When we start looking at this information, again, we have to make sure that we -- there is some obviously could be at central locations and others that need to be distributed. So, again, we get as much appropriate information and critical information to everyone that is on the train. <<<: Just build off of that as far as brainstorming goes, I like it is decentralized. In some cases it depends on the situation, perhaps or the ability to provide real estate to provide the sign. More like what if we had a phone jack nearby or at every seat there was a phone jack and you can plug in your dollar store ear plugs and scroll through some of the information provided. Or make it a performance standard; if you don't have phone jacks available, that the crew member is available to at least give you the menu of things that are posted up. And if you45

needed more information, happy to describe those things for you. Just a couple of things that we can probably do to make sure everybody gets that information. MR. SLAUGHTER: I know everyone has seen the greeting card that you open up and it sings or does something. We actually had cards that were prerecorded and told you everything that was in the visual passenger safety card. Read off all that information and it was in a controlled common voice. And that was -- the problem with that is can someone hear that over all the noise in a train. But that was before everyone had, you know, earbuds to carry along with them. MS. MAZZ: Have we exhausted ourselves? Does anyone have any specific questions about the scoping or technical criteria that is in the ADA standards? <<<: Are we going to talk about the variable message signs and the ICC standard? MS. MAZZ: Sure, if you want to. <<<: Can we just briefly go over what is in the ICC standard? Even though I looked through it. It is fairly new to me. My biggest concern is making sure -- we brought this up in one of our issues list46

to make sure that we can or that we do provide the information in the most legible, readable formats possible, given the new technologies that are available to us. Well, before the original ADAAG was written, signs were your basic LED compaction rate. Was very widely spaced and the angle you see it is small. I would like to know more what the regulation state as the technical criteria in stroke width to height ratio and whether or not it addresses certain technologies over others. MS. MAZZ: The provisions of the ANSI standard up to Section 703.7 are very, very similar to the ADA standards. We only provided them because Section 703.7, variable message signs, refers back to some of those sections, or at least is based on some of those sections. Basically what the variable message section does is it divides variable message signs into high resolution and low resolution signs. Doesn't tell you that you have to provide one or the other. It just simply divides them into two different groups and then applies different technical criteria to those two groups of signs. Because the high resolution signs47

can, obviously, perform better than the low resolution signs overall. There are some -- and all of those technical criteria basically take you back to the requirements in the standards for case and style and character height and the like. There is also in here -- and I'm trying to find it as I talk. There is a requirement, I think, some requirements applicable to the protective covering on those kinds of signs, the brightness, which is not a term used on regular signs. And then rate of change, which essentially means, you know, how quickly it moves or scrolls. Those are unique to the VMS criteria. Is there something else you want to add there, Jim? MR. PECHT: I mean the ANSI committee, like Marsha was saying. They look at high resolution signs, which is what you find in like a plasma television or something like that. And assume that those were of such high resolution that they can be equivalent to the print size in 703 and that is what they require. When it gets to the low resolution where they talk about the height being square from 7 to 16 pixels and48

specifically with regard to stroke width and, like Marsha says, other information with regard to protective covering and the scrolling. MS. MAZZ: Glenn, do you know whether the signs in Metro here in Washington are high res or low res signs? MR. PECHT: They are low res. MR. MILLIS: I'm not going to disagree with him because I don't know the answer to that. I'm not the sign expert at Metro. <<<: One of the things we should probably consider is whether or not we are going to in the scoping provisions require high res or low res depending on the type of signs or whether everything should be high res. Those are some of the things we should think about, you think? MS. MAZZ: You have many options. One might be to simply say, "If you provide a variable message sign it has to conform to these requirements." Start with that. Because right now there is nothing in the ADA standards that specifically applies to those types of signs because they were not used at the time the ADA standards were originally written. At least that. You might also want to think about where you think it is appropriate to encourage the use. Not49

necessarily require the use of variable message signs, but they are going to be used. They are already used, to some degree, on buses -- MR. SLAUGHTER: (Static Noise) This is not really signage, but it could be in most cases it is a monitor you can pull up all kinds of information on. But I guess it could be signs as well. MS. MAZZ: On buses, for example, your stop request sign is very often a variable message sign. On rail cars here in Washington, you have a variable message sign that tells you, I think, whether it is a green, red, orange or blue train. I don't know it tells you much else at the moment. MS. HAMLIN: Those signs are supposed to tell you what station stop and what side of the car to get off on. They don't use them. It is capable of that but it is not being used. In New York they have variable message signs on New York City subways which tells you what station you are in and where you are going and where you came from. So there are all kinds of possibilities for rail cards. MR. MILLIS: I'm not sure that is correct but I can check on that and get back to the committee. MS. HAMLIN: I'm sorry. Which part is not

correct?50

MR. MILLIS: Are we talking about the signs on the side and inside the cars? <<<: Both. MS. MAZZ: Inside the car. <<<: Oh, inside the cars. Thank you. MR. CAPON: I have seen the station indicators working on Metro. I don't recall seeing indication of what side to get off on. Interior, some of the cars do work. MR. WETHERELL: Sorry. I had to step out. Are we talking about indicating what side the doors will open on? <<<: The information we present in our subway cars. I know there are some countries that do -- I think Japan is one of them that indicate what side the doors are going to open on. Basically what we do when we are doing a car design, we look at what the needs of our particular passengers are. You know, with our passengers, as far as their needs. We have never come up with the fact that they needed to know what sides the doors are going to be opening on. Now, obviously, if somebody is riding and they are unable themselves to tell which side it is on, I can see that being an issue. But we do have lights51

that indicate what doors are opening. Obviously, somebody with vision -- somebody that is disabled and -- I don't know if we ever had a problem with it. It is certain something we can certain look into. MR. MILLIS: On our trains we do have lights that light up. And people can also see the door opening and the train operators do announce the name of the station and the door opening on the left and right side.MS. HAMLIN: When I have ridden, rode -- my English is not working right now. But when I have been on the Metro and the signs do work what it will say is "the station is Metro Center." Then there are little arrows pointing on which side of the car you should get off on. I don't know if that is absolutely necessary. Because it shows up before you get to the station stop, I find it really helpful, you know. It is just nice to know if I have to go through a lot of people, which side of the car I need to get to. One thing I also found about Metro, when you look out the window, it is really dark and you can't see. Somebody with a hearing loss, like myself, sees a visual sign like that. I'm thrilled. I'm really happy. I not only know which stop I'm in, I know52

which side to exit, and I don't have to look out the dim windows before I get there. MS. MAZZ: That information is useful to people who don't see well or don't see at all because with very few exceptions, the side of the car that the doors open on relates to whether or not you are exiting on to a side island platform or a center island platform. And that is pretty critical information for someone who doesn't see well. <<<: This is Josh at Talgo. I don't think there is any technical challenge here, the light rail system in Dallas and Seattle have signs that indicate the next station and what side to get off. MR. SHIOTANI: I think the newer cars have the capability. The older cars didn't have the technology and the newest cars do have the technology and I expect in Metro's newest, newest cars, which we will have down the road, will have everything. MR. MILLIS: That is very correct. One of the things you don't see is the technology on our older cars. We have it on the 6000 cars, unfortunately when you marry a 6000 car with an older car, is there in one place and not the other. The whole car needs to be a 6000 car for it to work. So that is a detraction from the system.53

I don't disagree it is useful to have more information telling you which side of the car the doors are opening. What I am suggesting is that there are signals and cues right now in the system, both visual and audio, at least in our newer equipment to tell you what side of the car the door is opening on. MS. PACHECO: Unfortunately, especially with Metro, while that is in place, it is not in place audibly more than probably, I would estimate, I never actually done numbers on it, not more than above 40 percent of the time in a manner in which people can actually understand it, if it is being broadcast at all by the drivers. On most of -- on an awful lot, those messages are not being done audibly or not being done well enough. MR. MILLIS: I don't mean to be argumentative and I am not. I have looked at our latest consumer surveys. You are absolutely right. Sometimes it is hard to hear things with car noise, train noise, people noise and other announcements in the station and whatnot. But our consumer surveys are telling us people are hearing those announcements at least 90 percent of the time. That is a long ways to 100 percent. I understand what you're saying. MS. PACHECO: The other issue it is more54

noticeable to someone who is blind or has low vision who can't see the station they are coming to or can't read the signs in the station. Those are the onces who are noticing it more than the average passenger. MR. HOFF: This issue is very similar to bus experience. The requirement was always there from day one to provide on board announcements to help people who cannot orient themselves by simply looking out the window. This is similar to that, but probably less critical. The performance standard now on buses or it is in the new regulations yet to be adopted is to have automated systems on board to do the announcements and takes out the human factor. Usually what comes with that is usually a better system when you do something automatically and it is prerecorded, you don't have some of the difficulties you have with making those announcements manually each time with being too close to the microphone, what have you. Perhaps we have a requirement that the announcements been made -- whatever announcements we do have announcements that we think are critical that we make them to be automated, very much like on the bus side. MS. PACHECO: I think that is something definitely worth looking at.55

MR. SLAUGHTER: It is really obvious when we start talking about some of these things the critical differences between some of the more mass transit situations and what we would find in long haul trains. Typically in overnight trains we will have at a certain time of the evening the lights are turned down, announcements, unless they are emergency announcements, are not broadcast in the sleeping car, in some cases even in the coaches because the car attendant is supposed to make sure that they know exactly where you are getting off. They have taken care of that at the front end of the trip and they will get you and make sure you get off at the right place. If that doesn't happen, we have what we call a "carry-by". For any conductor or train person it is really bad, because we have a really expensive cab ride for that individual back home again. I just want to make sure that we keep in mind that some of these messages are very critical to certain operations and maybe even within certain aspects of the Amtrak operation, but in other areas like long haul trains, long distance, overnight train, that may not be at all appropriate because we have a system in place that takes care of that, yet doesn't wake people up in the56

middle of the night or wake up everyone in the middle of the night. MR. CAPON: Blair, I'm pretty sure the rule you described for the sleeping car does apply across the board for overnight coaches. MR. SLAUGHTER: That is what I thought. MS. HAMLIN: I think maybe we should think along the lines it is not so much requiring that be provided but when it is provided. For example, when it is provided visually it should also be auditory, when it is auditory it should also be visual when we are talking about those messaging boards, electronic messaging boards. I don't know even if -- I don't know that we could say that it should be required in every situation or could we? Am I wrong about that? MR. PECHT: That would be up to the committee to pick and choose which messages they want to have in what format. I think that is part of the thing we want you to go home and do homework about is sort of categorizing what you think is really important and what you think is sort of important, what you think maybe we don't need to have that in a certain format. Obviously stop announcements, upcoming stops are57

important, obviously. Emergency communication -- evacuation communication are probably going to be pretty high up on the list. A commercial for some product, probably not. So those are the kind of things you can look at. Also we have given you the sort of background of what is required in the buildings and the built environment. You have to take that and say, "Okay, do we apply that in the train environment or do we modify it?" In other words, for example, you have requirements for variable message signs that character height goes all the way up to over 4-inches but that is when you have a horizontal viewing distance of greater than 20 feet. So perhaps you would rather have 2-inches as your maximum in which case you may want to say these signs have to be provided so that they are viewed from 10 feet. So that would require more signs in the car, rather than one or two. Maybe that would require three. That is something you can decide to tinker with and sort of modify based on the train environment. MR. SLAUGHTER: From a scoping standpoint, I'm curious how will we reconcile requirements of the FRA for emergency evacuations and those kind of things,58

Part 238 and 49 CFR, and also any recommended practices in APNA against what we might think about in this committee? Is there a plan in the Access Board or between the Access Board and the FRA to try to recognize those sort of things? MR. BEATTY: We are hoping one of the benefits of the Advisory Committee is you will identify signs that are required by other types of regulations you are subject to that we weren't even aware of. And once we have a better idea of everything that comes into play, we can make a decision on how or if we get involved. This is my opinion, but it is not necessarily the staff's opinion here or the group. I think, in my opinion, we need to sort of focus things down. We have had a good discussion, but we were talking about a lot of communication issue. I think we need to start first with maybe answering two questions. If I provide a fixed sign, regardless whether the sign is something I personally want to put up or it is required by some other regulation that you are subject to. But if I provide a fixed sign, what does it have to comply with in terms of character proportion, character size and does that sign have to have some sort of tactile.59

So if I am Joe Smoh signage company and I have a project for XYZ transit agency and they are hiring me to put up signs, I know exactly what those signs have to be. Now, realizing there are issues that come that we will have to address beyond that, if certain signs can't be made to meet certain access requirements, do I need to do something else. I suggest we cross that bridge after we settle the issue about if I provide a fixed sign, what does it need to comply with in terms of using maybe a starting point the ADAAG technical provisions -- MS. MAZZ: Absolutely using the ADAAG technical provisions. Again, we don't want you to just make up criteria. Those criteria have to have some basis and have to be validated in some way. So start with the ADAAG criteria. If you, for some reason, feel the unique feature of a train makes it impossible or difficult to comply with those criteria, then you may want to look for different ways of achieving the same goal, which may be through some other means. It may be, for example, to recommend that that information be included in some kind of briefing. But that would not be part of the standards. It would be a recommendation to DOT to60

include requirements somewhere in their documents for something that is not a fixed, built-in solution. MR. SLAUGHTER: Along that that, I would like to suggest, Paul, there are activities on trains or transportation that are very different from buildings because buildings don't move. I think we already talked about that as part of the homework, if people can come and bring specific items that need to be addressed that the information needs to be there because it is a train and not a building. It is a different kind of information and a different activity, then we can take that and say we have to have a sign that describes this activity or warns someone about this condition. Then we can take the ADAAG requirements and put that sign into it and see what it produces. And then if there is a problem we can figure out how to solve the problem because the sign is too big or whatever. But, for me, from a provider standpoint, I'm really looking at what people need or what people perceive that they need to negotiate within the train that may not be there today. MR. BEATTY: I guess what I'm trying to do is get us a little more focused at the second call. I think that if we can evaluate certain signs using ADAAG61

technical provisions and then decide what doesn't fit, we don't necessarily have to come to a conclusion. We just say this particular sign doesn't fit. Now, we either have a good reason to modify how ADAAG would apply or we later in a separate call discuss, okay, this particular sign, yeah, under ADAAG would require to meet these certain requirements but we don't think it is a good fit therefore under another call what are alternatives that could be recommended to communicate the same information. The same way in terms if you provide a variable message sign, not so much what information needs to be on the sign, but are you comfortable with the ICC and co-council provisions that address variable message signs? If you provide a variable message sign it is it appropriate? Then we have a separate discussion on what canned information needs to be broadcast on a variable message sign. That is later. Right now if you provide a variable message sign, what does it have to comply with technically wise. So would that help us boil down what we focus in on the second call? I mean this is just a question to you all and to my colleagues here. We are sort of brainstorming how can we using conference calls effectively to allow you to make real progress on62

identifying issues. And since we have to speak over the phone and use CART, obviously there is some communication difficulties for a lot of us. So I'm proposing something that other people can counter-propose. We have about 20 more minutes in the call. Any comments to that? MS. MAZZ: I think we already suggested that people develop their own lists. And Jim further suggested that they try and organize those lists according to various types of signs. And Jim just slipped me a note and said should we ask them to send the list to us before the next call. That would be very helpful because we can compile it and reorganize it because whatever categories you put things into we can homogenize them so they all fit in the appropriate categories. Some people might use the term "warnings" and somebody might use the term "notices" to mean the same thing. But we can spend some time organizing that for you and send it back out to before your next call.And I would suggest that you also look at your issues list because it begins to do that in terms of types of signs. In terms of looking at the ADA requirements,63

again, unless you have a basis for inventing new requirements, you want to be careful about that. But you may decide that the ADA requirements don't work well for something. For example, someone has already suggested, well, would it be okay to just do braille or just do raised letters. I think in some circumstances that may be something that you want to contemplate, if real estate is not available. But I think that would be a preferable way to go over, well, we are going to play with the size requirements on tactile letters, for example, and let them go down to a quarter inch or a half inch, since 5/8-inch is the reasonable size deemed to be readable, unless you have a very good reason going below that and you know it will work. MR. BEATTY: When do we want the homework/input provided to us? Thirteenth is our next call, which is Thursday. So close of business Tuesday. So if you can provide it to the RVAAC email address by close of business Tuesday we hope to do something and send it out to you. The latest would probably be the morning of the conference call, which is the 13th. MS. HAMLIN: I can imagine what an Amtrak car looks like, but chances are I'm not going to be on one between now and next Tuesday, although I might, but64

you never know. And I know I could be on a Metro. I'm happy to try to provide you a list and -- I can do what I can and I would be willing to put in as much information as I can. The other thing for me I'm thinking what Marsha is saying and I have to believe that people put a lot of thought into the size of how these letters should be displayed. I have no expertise in this area, none, zero, so I can't really help you on that end and saying well it should be -- I know the folks at Amtrak can say, "I have this much space if you want it here." I'm struggling with how I can be most helpful here, I guess is what I'm saying. MS. MAZZ: Lise, you can be helpful in imaging the type of things that are visual on a train and developing a list of what types of things you think can be communicating to people with vision impairment or hearing impairments, and if you can imagine any types of exceptions to that rule. For example, Jim suggested in there a sign targeted strictly to employees. Maybe that sign should and could be exempt from the requirements. You may think about what types of communications you typically miss now when you are on vehicles of any kind. What do you suspect is not getting through and65

ask yourself why. That might help. MS. HAMLIN: I can do that. And I guess the point is everybody takes it from their own perspective and I might not get everything, but somebody else will fill in the gaps that I don't see. So that is what we are looking at. MS. MAZZ: That is why we wanted to put it in one compiled list. MS. HAMLIN: Right. MS. MAZZ: And try to give people an opportunity to try and do that. We have to take public comment before we break and we only have 10 minutes left. Can we do that now or does somebody have something they want to say beforehand? MR. BEATTY: I think when we are thinking of public comment, for those not participating in the committee who may be listening to this call, give you an opportunity to speak, as opposed to those who have been involved in the committee work and have been attending the meetings. So if there is anybody out there that meets that criteria, please identify yourself. First of all, I guess it would be nice to know how many people are throughout. Is there anybody?66

MS. BUNALES: All the lines are open right now. There are 23 people on the call right now. And all I see are phone numbers. I don't have any other -- MS. MAZZ: So if anybody who is a member of the public would like to share some thoughts with the committee, speak now. Going, going, gone. Okay. MS. HAMLIN: Can I ask a process question? Will you have either a summary or the CART available for us to take a look at? MR. BEATTY: We can make the CART available. I guess it is a question of the turnaround time. Generally the CART person does a little bit of clean-up before they send it to me and then I would put it like before in the drop box, since I'm having problems at regulations.gov. I think everybody can use the drop box except, for one person, Frank. So at this point I will try and get it out to you, but we can't promise because we have such a short turnaround between this call and the next that you would get it with much time in advance of the next call or the deadline to provide your homework. So we will do what we can do. MS. HAMLIN: Okay. Thank you. MS. MAZZ: Does that conclude our meeting? Thank you all.67

MR. BEATTY: Remember everybody, February 13 is our next call at 1:00 to 3:00 eastern time but most of you are probably turned off.