Travellers World

Travelling with a wheelchair — the good, the bad and the not-a-chance

Tag: transport

  • Taxis and WAVs: booking the ride that actually turns up

    The taxi is the connective tissue of every trip. The train can be perfect and the hotel can be perfect, and the whole day still hinges on an eight-minute ride between the two. It is also the least regulated, least bookable, most variable part of the chain.

    Know the two kinds of accessible taxi

    A WAV — wheelchair accessible vehicle — takes you travelling in the wheelchair, up a rear or side ramp, with the chair strapped down. The other kind is an ordinary car with a driver who is happy to stow a folded chair in the boot while you transfer to the seat. Which one you need is the first thing to say when you ring, because firms constantly send the wrong one. “Wheelchair user” means both things and neither.

    Booking one outside a big city

    In London, every black cab is legally required to be wheelchair accessible, and mostly this works. Outside the big cities, WAVs are scarce, often owned by one or two local firms, and often booked out doing school runs at exactly the times you want to travel — early morning and mid-afternoon. So:

    • Book days ahead, not hours. For a morning train, we book the taxi before we book the train.
    • Avoid 8–9.30am and 2.30–4pm in small towns if you possibly can. That is school contract time and the WAVs vanish.
    • Get the booking confirmed by text or email, with “wheelchair accessible vehicle” written down. A verbal booking for a WAV has a way of becoming a saloon car on the night.
    • Ask the hotel for the local firm they actually use. Receptions know which firm turns up and which one doesn’t.
    • Take the driver’s card when you find a good one. A driver who did it well once will do it well again, and most will take a direct booking.

    In the vehicle

    The driver should strap the chair down at four points and offer the seatbelt. A driver who waves you up the ramp and sets off with the chair loose is not doing you a favour, however friendly he is. It is fine to ask for the straps. It is your neck.

    One more thing worth knowing: a licensed driver cannot legally charge a wheelchair user more than anyone else for the same journey, and refusing the fare because of the wheelchair is, for most drivers, an offence. You will almost never need to say this out loud. It is still worth knowing on the night you do.

    Your turn: if you have experiences of your own — the places that got it right, and the ones that got it badly wrong — tell us in the comments below. Every report helps the next traveller.

  • Buses and coaches: the ramp, the space, and the lift

    Buses are the transport we use least and rely on most when we do, because a bus is usually the fallback — the train is off, the taxi hasn’t come, the town is the kind where everything else has stopped for the day. So it is worth knowing exactly how the bus is supposed to work, and where it doesn’t.

    Local buses: better than their reputation

    Every full-size local bus in Britain has been required to be accessible for years now: low floor, a powered ramp at the middle or front door, and a wheelchair space. The ramp is deployed by the driver at the push of a button, no booking, no notice. When it works — which is most of the time — it is the most spontaneous accessible transport in the country. Turn up, wave, ride.

    The failure points, so you can see them coming:

    • The ramp doesn’t deploy. They jam, mostly from grit. The driver is supposed to try the manual override; some don’t know it exists. It is fine to ask.
    • The kerb. The ramp needs a kerb of decent height to land on a usable slope. A stop where the bus pulls up on a painted line on flat tarmac gives you a steep ramp; rural stops are the worst for it.
    • The space is occupied. The wheelchair space is legally the wheelchair user’s priority — the courts settled that — and the driver is supposed to require, not just request, that a buggy makes way if it reasonably can. In practice this depends entirely on the driver’s spine. Most of the time it resolves with ordinary politeness.
    • One space per bus. Two wheelchair users travelling together will almost never fit on one bus. We plan around this rather than test it.

    Coaches: a different animal entirely

    Long-distance coaches are high-floor vehicles, and access is by lift, not ramp — where it exists at all. The big scheduled operators run wheelchair-accessible coaches on their main routes, but you must book the space in advance, usually at least a day or two ahead, and confirm whether your chair’s size and weight fit the lift’s limits. Powered chairs press against those limits quickly. This is not a turn-up service and never pretends to be; treat a coach like a flight, not like a bus.

    The question that matters most, because it catches people: “Is the accessible coach guaranteed on my specific departure, and what happens if it is swapped?” Vehicle swaps happen, and a swap to a non-lift coach strands you at the stop with a valid ticket. Get the answer, and the assistance phone number, in writing.

    Our honest ranking

    City bus networks: genuinely good, use them freely. Rural buses: good bones, patchy kerbs, have a plan B. Coaches: workable with planning, but the booking-and-confirmation dance means we usually take the train unless the price difference is silly.

    Tell us below in the comments of any issues you have with buses and coaches