page_title: Tactile paving
section_title: United Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Tactile paving / By country / Europe / United Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: English: Pedestrian crossing on Worting Road
context_page_description: Tactile paving is a system of textured ground surface indicators found on footpaths, stairs and railway station platforms, to assist pedestrians who are vision impaired.
  Tactile warnings provide a distinctive surface pattern of truncated domes, cones or bars, detectable by a long cane or underfoot, which are used to alert the vision-impaired of approaching streets and hazardous surface or grade changes. There is disagreement between the design and user community as to whether installing the aid inside buildings may cause a tripping hazard.
  A system of tactile paving was first instituted in Japan at pedestrian crossings and other hazardous road situations; the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States picked up the standard in the early 1990s. Canada started incorporating them into transportation first in the 1990s, and then added them to other aspects of the built environment in the early 2000s.
context_section_description: Tactile ground surface indicators are installed in accordance with unique standards established by the United Kingdom's Department for Transport. Blocks with dots and blocks with bars are used, but both types are intended as warning blocks; neither serves a directional function. Blocks are mainly installed before crosswalks, at medians, at station platforms and at the tops and bottoms of stairways. Blocks with dots are for installations at crosswalks, medians and station platforms while blocks with bars are for installations at stairways. The color of blocks installed before crosswalks is also supposed to vary with crosswalk type: red blocks are to be used before controlled crossings, such as zebra crossings (where pedestrians always have the right of way), pelican crossings (equipped with push-button traffic lights) and puffin crossings (with sensor-equipped push button traffic lights). Other colors (often buff) are to be used at other crosswalks where automobiles have the right of way.
  The difference in colour is intended to assist people with low vision to navigate the crosswalk safely, but many locations do not conform to the established colours. Different colour blocks are also sometimes installed when repairs are made. Blocks are installed in an L-shaped configuration at crosswalks with push-button traffic signals, with the corner of the L marking the location of the push button. Blocks with bars are installed at the top and bottom of stairways such that the direction of the bars is parallel to the long dimension of the treads.
  Blocks with bars are also used to mark cycle tracks, but with the bars parallel to the direction of travel.
caption: A typical "L-shape" of tactile paving at a controlled crossing in the UK.
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