In Australia, disability groups upset with new train policy that requires wheelchair users to sit in area without shelter, safety lighting

From The Daily Telegraph in Australia:

A rail operator wants commuters in wheelchairs to wave a "high-visibility" card to warn train guards they need a boarding ramp.

Disability groups are outraged that wheelchair-bound passengers in Sydney will now have to wait towards the end of the train platform - without shelter or safety lighting - in a so-called BAZ area (boarding assistant zone).

RailCorp said it was to accommodate its new $2 billion Waratah trains, because guards were positioned in the back carriage instead of the current location in the middle.

However, there was widespread confusion as to why every platform was now being reconfigured given just one of the 78 new trains will be delivered by the end of this year and just two more by March 2011.

"I was part of the consultation process two years ago and at that time I felt like we were not being consulted," Physical Disability Council of NSW policy officer Jordana Goodman said.

"We were told that the train was being built and that we would have to make the best of what we have."

She said the notion of having to wave a card was ridiculous: "I'm sitting down, so it will be quite hard to be noticed if the platform is busy when there are people standing all around me.

"When on the train I am reliant on the guard getting off at the station and positioning the ramp, so this is going to make it difficult too."

RailCorp station managers were also concerned. "They'll be left in the rain, in the hot sun - this is wrong and we are concerned," one station manager told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

RailCorp said it was "improving procedures" to assist people with a disability.

"Under the changes, consistent locations for wheelchair-bound passengers will be marked on every platform, aligned with carriage six," a spokesman said.