Effort on to increase disabled-friendly PSVs

Public service vehicle (PSV) stakeholders are aiming to significantly increase the number of disability-friendly vehicles on the road to help better service members of that community.

Chairman of the Alliance Owners of Public Transport (AOPT) Roy Raphael says his association will be leading the charge to ensure that at least 10 per cent of its fleet cater to differently-abled persons.

He told Barbados TODAY his association believes there needs to be a serious relook at how these individuals are catered to in the public transport system.

“We have to start thinking seriously and be able to cater for those persons. A lot of those persons can’t go anywhere because the cost to move [them] is very high,” he said.

“We will ensure that every route has at least one bus or two on board to assist those persons who want to get from one point to another, but we can only do this if the Government decides to come on board to ensure that those persons receive duty-free concessions.”

While he has supported loan provisions for PSVs to buy hybrid, natural gas or electric-powered vehicles as part of the Government’s drive to transition the country to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030, Raphael urged that the disabled not be forgotten in the switch.

“What we want to do is to . . . encourage the members of our PSV community, as they transition to newer vehicles, to remember the disabled community,” he said.

“We are going to be doing a project shortly with the Government and hopefully we should be looking to bring in a bus that has equipment [for persons with] disabilities on board…. Barbados has the largest percentage of older persons who may have disabilities so all [stakeholders] need to come on board as we try to transition our vehicles.” (SB)